TO OUR WOMEN
(Adapted from the French of Paul Déroulède)
Woman, if the man to whom your heart you give
Gives you all his heart, to you alone is true—
If, American, a stranger he can live
To America, his only country You—
If without despising himself and you alike
He hears his duty call and lifts no hand to strike—
Woman, your clinging hands have bent his soul awry.
You knew not how to love him if he knows not how to die.
Mother, if your hoy grows man in years alone,
Loving self so well, he has no heart to hear
The voice of higher hopes, if he has never known
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