Rhymes of a Red Cross Man

<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"></SPAN></p> <br/> <h2> Son </h2> <p>He hurried away, young heart of joy, under our Devon sky!<br/> And I watched him go, my beautiful boy, and a weary woman was I.<br/> For my hair is grey, and his was gold; he'd the best of his life to live;<br/> And I'd loved him so, and I'm old, I'm old; and he's all I had to give.<br/> <br/> Ah yes, he was proud and swift and gay, but oh how my eyes were dim!<br/> With the sun in his heart he went away, but he took the sun with him.<br/> For look! How the leaves are falling now,<br/> and the winter won't be long. . . .<br/> Oh boy, my boy with the sunny brow, and the lips of love and of song!<br/> <br/> How we used to sit at the day's sweet end, we two by the firelight's gleam,<br/> And we'd drift to the Valley of Let's Pretend,<br/> on the beautiful river of Dream.<br/> Oh dear little heart! All wealth untold would I gladly, gladly pay<br/> Could I just for a moment closely hold that golden head to my grey.<br/> <br/> For I gaze in the fire, and I'm seeing there a child, and he waves to me;<br/> And I run and I hold him up in the air, and he laughs and shouts with glee;<br/> A little bundle of love and mirth, crying: "Come, Mumsie dear!"<br/> Ah me! If he called from the ends of the earth<br/> I know that my heart would hear.<br/> <br/> . . . . .<br/> <br/> Yet the thought comes thrilling through all my pain:<br/> how worthier could he die?<br/> Yea, a loss like that is a glorious gain, and pitiful proud am I.<br/> For Peace must be bought with blood and tears,<br/> and the boys of our hearts must pay;<br/> And so in our joy of the after-years, let us bless them every day.<br/> <br/> And though I know there's a hasty grave with a poor little cross at its head,<br/> And the gold of his youth he so gladly gave, yet to me he'll never be dead.<br/> And the sun in my Devon lane will be gay, and my boy will be with me still,<br/> So I'm finding the heart to smile and say: "Oh God, if it be Thy Will!"<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />