And, beside the warm south window,
At this very hour of day,
Where the sunbeams love to linger,
With her knitting dropped away,
She is sitting—mother—mother,
With your pale and patient face,
Where the frosted hairs forever
Shed their sad and tender grace.
Are you thinking of that morning
Your last kisses faltered down,
When the summer sun was dawning
O'er the old New Hampshire town?
For my country, in her anguish,
Came betwixt us mightily:
'Save me, or, my son, I perish!'
Was her dread appeal to me.
Youth and strength and life made answer:
When that cry of bitter stress
Woke the hills of old New Hampshire,
Could I give my country less?
And not when the battle's thunder,
Crashed along our ranks its power—
And not now, though fiercer hunger
Drains my life-springs at this hour—
Would I fainter make the answer,
Or the offering less complete,
That I laid, in old New Hampshire,
Joyful at my country's feet!
Though your boy has borne, dear mother,
Watching by that window low,
Through the long, slow hours this hunger
It would break your heart to know.
Though the thought of that old larder,
And the shelves o'erflowing there,
Made the pang of hunger harder
Through the day and night to bear.
And the doves have come each morning,
And the lowing kine been fed,
While your only boy was starving
For a single crust of bread!