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Title: Some Mother's Boy
Author: Mary Alice Walton [
More Titles by Walton]
The battle-cry is sounding loud, a bugle calls to arm,
The hills and dales are clouded o'er, troops gather in alarm;
With winds is mingled sighing prayer from many a sinking brave;
A youth obeying duty's call, a life his country gave.
A soldier boy's dying cry is heard amid the roar
Of battle strife; surround with slain he falls to rise no more.
Some mother's boy! it matters not if clad in blue or gray,
If fighting for the right or wrong, is hurried to his grave.
Amid the beats of drum and fife, his pillow but a sod,
With folded hands and marble brow, his soul returns to God.
Some mother's boy is resting where the lonely willows weep,
And voices waft with waving trees, while angels watch him sleep.
Now comes along the highway a dusty tramp forlorn,
A tattered coat conceals beneath a bent and aged form,
With hardened weary visage, a bell he faintly rings;
The air is rent with pitying notes, an angel softly sings.
Upon this frozen nature no love for years has shown;
His life is made of cruel words, and knows no kindly tone;
And could you see into his past, as mother clasped her boy,
He then was innocent and fair--her pride, her hope, her joy.
She never dreamed her darling child a weary tramp would be,
For o'er his tasks or youthful sports he laughed in childish glee;
Perhaps he sinned, but, O! forget, for suffering must repay,
And someone's boy has now become wretched, old and gray.
Within a large and gilded hall a revel wild is held,
The sound of oaths and laughter loud upon the breezes swell;
A man is seen with bloated face come reeling to the streets;
He turns his fierce and lurid eyes as friends he loudly greets.
Some mother's boy has fallen low, we hear the broken sob
Of angels who have watched for years his footsteps turn from God.
Someone's prayers have oft been made o'er him in childhood's day,
When, rocked in love, he knew no wrong, a smiling infant lay.
Some mother's tears have freely flowed, and lonely vigils kept;
Some mother's heart has often bled while others coldly slept;
Some mother suffers for the wrong, and angels sadly weep
Whene'er some careless, wayward son has sown what he must reap.
A scaffold high with spreading arms on yonder height we see,
It waits to take its victim's life, exulting cruelly.
While zephyr's blow, birds hover o'er a soul in dire distress,
With troubled gaze breathes out a prayer. Will God attend and bless?
What matter if he's clothed in sin, what matter if he's wild,
In foulest guilt? Remember, that, he is somebody's child.
We cannot tell how hard he strove to shun temptation's snare;
How often on his mother's breast he wept in his despair.
How oft her lips had softly pressed his dimpled infant cheek,
How oft her hand in love caressed the sinless baby feet.
Then, strangers, pause and listen well; so might your own have been,
But Christ can freely pardon all, though scarlet be his sin.
Some mother's boy! The sweet refrain is breathed in accents mild.
Some mother's boy! If bent and gray, if pure or all denied.
Some mother's boy! Soft bells repeat in sad and sweetest chime;
Some mother's boy! A mother sighs; perhaps he may be mine.
[The end]
Mary Alice Walton's poem: Some Mother's Boy
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