ABSTRACT
(From Punch) Oh sad was my heart as for marching we mustered, For I thought of the wife I was leaving behind, And the six hungry mouths round their mother that clustered, With bread at high price, and with work hard to find. On my watch aboard ship, standing sentry ashore, By the bivouac fire, still that thought would pursue; Till I dreamed a glad dream—and was sorry no more— ’Twas the time of the night when they say dreams are true. I dreamed that I saw the poor babes I’d forsaken, And her whom too soon a sad mother I’d made, Looking still as she looked when that last leave was taken, Not knowing from whom to seek counsel or aid. I heard their shrill cry as they asked her for bread, Heard her answer—“The bread of the parish or none!” Saw them shivering for cold on a blanketless bed, And crouch’d round a hearth whence the last spark was gone. When sudden, with look like an angel of grace, And hands that bore raiment, and firing, and food, I saw a kind lady come into the place To cheer my sad wife and her clamorous brood. “Take, eat and be warm; ’tis the offering of friends,” She said; “not the dole on the pauper bestowed; It comes from the country your husband defends, Which to you pays a debt that to him it feels owed.” His heart will be stouter, his arm will be stronger, When he knows that his children are clothed, taught, and fed; That his wife lives in dread of the workhouse no longer, To the shame of the country for which he has bled.” Then I cried in my sleep, “Take the soldier’s thanksgiving!” When lo! the reveille proclaimed break of day; And I stood to my arms with a heart free from grieving, All fears for my wife and my babes chased away.
