Page:Patriotic pieces from the Great War, Jones, 1918.djvu/133

Rh FATHER AND SON

Permission of the author

I

THE FATHER

Would God that I could go in place

Of him, my hope of house and race.

Would I could shoulder knapsack, gun

Against the wild and furious Hun.

Would I could face the tempest, rain,

The bullets, hunger, thirst and pain.

I'd revel in the maddest fray,

If only he, my boy, could stay.

I would be glad to sink in sea,

Be crucified, or hanged on tree,

Or fall in airplane from the sky.

I've lived. What matter when I die?

I'd stand, with smiles, in vilest trench,

And laugh at gases, mud and stench.

I would not wail for eyes gone blind,

Or shrink from shatt'ring of the mind,

I'd revel in the maddest fray,

If only he, my boy, could stay.

'Tis ill to know his youthful breast

May be by pallid fear oppressed;