KNITTING SOCKS
The Boston Transcript reprinted the following poem in 1917, just as it appeared in that paper November 27, 1861.
CLICK, click! how the needles go
Through the busy fingers, to and fro—
With no bright colors of berlin wool,
Delicate hands today are full:
Only a yarn of deep, dull blue,
Socks for the feet of the brave and true.
Yet click, click, how the needles go,
’Tis a power within that nerves them so.
In the sunny hours of the bright spring day,
And still in the night time far away.
Maiden, mother, grandame sit
Earnest and thoughtful while they knit.
Many the silent prayers they pray,
Many the tear drops brushed away.
While busy on the needles go,
Widen and narrow, heel and toe.
The grandame thinks with a thrill of pride
How her mother knit and spun beside
For that patriot band in olden days
Who died the Stars and Stripes to raise—
Now she in turn knits for the brave
Who’d die that glorious flag to save.
She is glad, she says, “the boys” have gone,
’Tis just as their grandfathers would have done.
But she heaves a sigh and the tears will start,
For “the boys” were the pride of grandame’s heart.
The mother’s look is calm and high,
God only hears her soul’s deep cry—
In Freedom’s name, at Freedom’s call,
She gave her sons—in them her all.
The maiden’s cheek wears a paler shade,
But the light in her eyes is undismayed.
Faith and hope give strength to her sight,
She sees a red dawn after the night.
Oh, soldiers brave, will it brighten the day,
And shorten the march on the weary way,
To know that at home the loving and true
Are knitting and hoping and praying for you?
Soft are the voices when speaking your name,
Proud are their glories when hearing your fame.
And the gladdest hour in their lives will be
When they greet you after the victory.
THE GOLDENROD
“ANCHUSA”
From B. L. T.’s column in The Chicago Tribune
SOME day the fields of Flanders shall bloom in peace again,
Field lilies and the clover spread where once was crimson stain,
And a new, cheerful golden spray shine through the sun and rain.
The clover’s for the English who sleep beneath that sod,
The lily’s for the noble French whose spirits rest with God,
But where our sacred dead shall sleep must bloom the goldenrod.
For every flower of summer those meadows will have room,
And yet I think no Flemish hand will touch the kaiser-bloom,
Whose growing blue must evermore whisper of grief and doom.
But clover for the English shall blossom from the sod,
And glorious lilies for the French whose spirits rest with God.
And where our own lads lie asleep the prairie goldenrod.
Once more the Flemish children shall laugh through Flemish lanes,
And gather happy garlands through fields of bygone pains,
And, as they run and cull their flowers, sing in their simple strains: