DRAFTED.
MRS. H. L. BOSTWICK.
The opening stanzas of this poem should be recited in an agitated, broken voice, as though the fond mother could not fully realize the fact of her boy being drafted:—in the end the voice changes to a firmer and gentler tone, as a spirit of resignation fills the mother's heart:
M
Y son! What! Drafted? My Harry! Why, man, 'tis a boy at his books;
No taller, I'm sure, than your Annie—as delicate, too, in his looks.
Why, it seems but a day since he helped me girl-like, in my kitchen at tasks;
He drafted! Great God, can it be that our President knows what he asks?