 | Miami Woods : a golden wedding and other poems |  |
THE MOTHERS OF THE WEST.
1.
The mothers of our Forest-Land!Stout-hearted dames were they;
With nerve to wield the battle-brand,
And join the border fray.
Our rough land had no braver
In its days of blood and strife—
Aye ready for severest toil,
Aye free to peril life.
2.
The mothers of our Forest-Land!On old Kentucky's soil,
How shared they, with each dauntless band,
War's tempest, and life's toil!
They shrank not from the foeman,
They quail'd not in the fight,
But cheer'd their husbands through the day,
And sooth'd them through the night.
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3.
The mothers of our Forest-Land!Their bosoms pillow'd MEN;
And proud were they by such to stand
In hammock, fort, or glen;
To load the sure old rifle—
To run the leaden ball—
To watch a battling husband's place,
And fill it should he fall.
4.
The mothers of our Forest-Land!Such were their daily deeds:
Their monument—where does it stand?
Their epitaph—who reads?
No braver dames had Sparta—
No nobler matrons Rome—
Yet who or lauds or honors them,
Ev'n in their own green home?
5.
The mothers of our Forest-Land!They sleep in unknown graves;
And had they borne and nursed a band
Of ingrates, or of slaves,
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But their graves shall yet be found,
And their monuments dot here and there
“The Dark and Bloody Ground!”
VI.
The plaudits that rose from the many,And the chatter that fell from the few,
Were silenced ere long by a trumpet,
Which peal'd out the “Red, White and Blue;”
And then, oft with tremulous cadence,
And tones that made holy the air,
From the hall came this song of a sorrow
Among the Green Hills of Adair—
The violin measuring fitly
The depth of the feeling express'd,
And the method and voice of the singer
Soon winning the heart of each guest:—
| Miami Woods : a golden wedding and other poems | |