1. Spake each mother to her son, Ere an ancient field was won: “Spartan, who me your mother call, Our country is mother of us all; In her you breathe, and move, and are. In peace, for her to live—in war, For her to die—is, gloriously, A patriot to live and die!” 2. The times are now as grand as then With dauntless women, earnest men; For thus the mothers whom we know Bade their sons to battle go; And, with a smile, the loyal North Sent her million freemen forth. 3. “What men should stronger-hearted be Than we, who dwell by the open sea, Tilling the lands our fathers won In battle on the Monmouth Plains? Ah! a memory remains, Telling us what they have done, Teaching us what we should do. Let us send our rightful share,— Hard-handed yeomen, horsemen rare, A hundred riders fleet and true.” 4. A hundred horsemen, led by Hugh: “Were he still here,” their captain thought, “The brave old man who trained my youth, What a leader he would make Where the battle’s topmost billows break! The crimes which brought our land to ruth, How in his soul they would have wrought! God help me, no deed of mine shall shame The honor of my grandsire’s name; And my father shall see how pure and good Runs in these veins the olden blood.” 5. Shore and inland their men have sent: Away, to the mounted regiment, The silver-hazed Potomac heights, The circling raids, the hundred fights, The booth, the bivouac, the tent. Away, from the happy Monmouth farms, To noontide marches, night alarms, Death in the shadowy oaken glades, Emptied saddles, broken blades,— All the turmoil that soldiers know Who gallop to meet a mortal foe, Some to conquer, some to fall: War hath its chances for one and all. 6. Heroes, who render up their lives On the country’s fiery altar-stone— They do not offer themselves alone. What shall become of the soldiers’ wives? They stay behind in the lonely cots, Weeding the humble garden-plots; Some to speed the needle and thread, For the soldiers’ children must be fed; All to sigh, through the toilsome day, And at night teach lisping lips to pray For the fathers marching far away. IX. 1. Cloud and flame on the dark frontier, Veiling the hosts embattled there: Peace, and a boding stillness, here, Where the wives at home repeat their prayer. 2. The weary August days are long; The locusts sing a plaintive song, The cattle miss their master’s call When they see the sunset shadows fall. The youthful mistress, at even-tide, Stands by the cedarn wicket’s side, With both hands pushing from the front Her hair, as those who listen are wont; Gazing toward the unknown South, While silent whispers part her mouth: