Lucy Larcom

“ He's re-enlisted for the war, for victory or for death;
A soldier's grave, perhaps! the thought has half-way stopped my breath,
And driven a cloud across the sun. My boy, it will not be!
The war will soon be over, home again you'll come to me.
He's re-enlisted; and I smiled to see him going too!
There's nothing that becomes him half so well as army blue. ”

“ And I and Massachusetts share the honor of his birth,—
The grand old State! to me the best in all the peopled earth!
I cannot hold a musket, but I have a son who can;
And I'm proud, for Freedom's sake, to be the mother of a man. ”

“ That couldn't be improved by all the badges in the land:
A patriot, and a good, strong man; are generals much more grand?
We rest our pride on that big heart, wrapt up in army blue,
The girl he loves, Mehitabel, and I, who love him too. ”