ONE SOLDIER DEAD

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 12, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 19.

[The following poem is expressive of what war really is.]

A FAIR young mother calmly read, While one hand rocked the cradle bed Wherein her first-born slept away The twilight of a summer day. She carelessly the paper turned Till “Latest War News” she discerned; “Our loss was small,” despatches said— “A skirmish, and one soldier dead.”

They troubled not to give his name, Or e’en the troop from which he came; For who, rejoicing in success, Cares if there be one private less? Only a soldier lying there, With blood upon his sunny hair, With no kind friend to raise his head, Or treasure the last words he said.

O happy mother, do you know That not so many years ago That soldier was a baby, too, With face as sweet and eyes as blue As those within yon cradle there, And knew a mother’s tender care, Who now must sit alone and weep Because he wakes not from his sleep?

And other thousands also said, “Only a private soldier dead,” Without a passing thought that he Might one of nature’s nobles be, Or that the words that line contained Would wreck a life that yet remained; His mother waits for him in vain, For he, her only child, is slain.

—Jean Paul Wayne, in Chicago Post.