We're proud that we can stand and say
We have a boy who's gone away.
And we are glad to know that he
Is serving where he ought to be.

It's queer, the change that time has brought:
We're different now in speech and thought;
His letters home mean joy to us,
His difficulties we discuss.
When word of his promotion came,
His mother, with her eyes aflame
With happiness and pride, rushed out
To tell the neighbors round about.
Her boy! Her boy is doing well!
What greater news can mothers tell?
I think that pity now we show
For those who have no boys to go.



Mothers and Wives


Mothers and wives, 'tis the call to arms
That the bugler yonder prepares to sound;
We stand on the brink of war's alarms
And your men may lie on a blood-stained
ground.
The drums may play and the flags may fly,
And our boys may don the brown and blue,