Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MOTHERS WITH LITTLE SONS, by ANGELA MORGAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MOTHERS WITH LITTLE SONS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O mothers with little sons
Last Line: And the ravaged earth be right
Subject(s): Mothers & Sons; Social Protest; War


O mothers with little sons
And burning hearts to teach,
You are the chosen ones—
Give hearing, I beseech!
The world is a ghastly place
Since war has slain our men;
But yours is the gift
And yours the grace
To bring love back again.

Mothers, I beg you, heed
What hate's dark hand has done;
How the hearts of people bleed
Till peace and right are won.
How the maimed and halt and blind
And the dread ones hidden away
Are a challenge to all mankind
To fashion a better way.

Mothers with little sons,
As you hold them to your breast,
Teach them to hate the guns,
That love and faith are best.
Show how the tyrant War
Destroys but does not win;
How the goals men battle for
Are lost with the world's great sin.

Strip from the monster's frame
His glittering robe of lies;
Show him in all his shame
To your children's visioning eyes.
Show how the lust to kill
Is the jungle's law of might,
And shells dropped down on a helpless town
Are murder in God's sight.

O mothers with little sons
Who stand with lifted faces,
All of earth's helpless ones
Cry from the lonely places.
And the dead men plead their cause,
And the crippled men implore:
"Go, fashion the Future's laws
That war shall be no more."

For war is a knave's design,
And a coward's brutal scheme,
And men whose courage is divine
Shall foster a nobler dream.
O mothers with little sons,
The years lie in your hands.
You are the chosen ones,
Men wait for your commands.
Not till your lips declare:
"Our sons no more shall fight!"
Shall the crimson soil be fair
And the ravaged earth be right





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