SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE, 1918
ALMON HENSLEY
in Everybody’s Magazine
Permission to reproduce in this book
LEAVE me alone here, proudly, with my dead,
Ye mothers of brave sons adventurous;
He who once prayed: “If it be possible
Let this cup pass,” will arbitrate for us.
Your boy with iron nerves and careless smile
Marched gaily by and dreamed of glory’s goal;
Mine had blanched cheek, straight mouth and close-gripped hands
And prayed that somehow he might save his soul.
I do not grudge your ribbon or your cross,
The price of these my soldier, too, has paid;
I hug a prouder knowledge to my heart,
The mother of the boy who was afraid!
He was a tender child with nerves so keen
They doubled pain and magnified the sad;
He hated cruelty and things obscene
And in all high and holy things was glad.
And so he gave what others could not give,
The one supremest sacrifice he made,
A thing your brave boy could not understand;
He gave his all because he was afraid!
AFTERWARD
CHARLES HANSON TOWNE
in The New York Tribune
THE sick man said: “I pray I shall not die
Before this tumult which now rocks the earth
Shall cease. I dread far journeyings to God
Ere I have heard the final shots of war,
And learned the outcome of this holocaust.”