Ballads of Bravery

With yeomen whose best work was done
At Concord and at Lexington,
When first they struck the blow.
Long may their children’s children bear
Upon wide shoulders, fit to wear,
The mantles that fell through the air
One hundred years ago!

The Brave at Home

THE maid who binds her warrior’s sash,
With smile that well her pain dissembles,
The while beneath her drooping lash
One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles,
Though heaven alone records the tear,
And fame shall never know the story,
Her heart has shed a drop as dear
As e’er bedewed the field of glory.

The wife who girds her husband’s sword,
’Mid little ones who weep or wonder,
And bravely speaks the cheering word,
What though her heart be rent asunder,
Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear
The bolts of death around him rattle,
Hath shed as sacred blood as e’er
Was poured upon a field of battle!

The mother who conceals her grief,
While to her breast her son she presses,
Then breathes a few brave words and brief,
Kissing the patriot brow she blesses,
With no one but her secret God
To know the pain that weighs upon her,
Sheds holy blood as e’er the sod
Received on Freedom’s field of honor!

Kane: died February 16, 1857

ALOFT upon an old basaltic crag,
Which, scalped by keen winds that defend the Pole,
Gazes with dead face on the seas that roll
Around the secret of the mystic zone,
A mighty nation’s star-bespangled flag
Flutters alone;
And underneath, upon the lifeless front
Of that drear cliff, a simple name is traced, —
Fit type of him who, famishing and gaunt,
But with a rocky purpose in his soul,
Breasted the gathering snows,