THE SOUTHERN SOLDIER BOY,

Otago Witness, Issue 2527, 20 August 1902, Page 59

THE SOUTHERN SOLDIER BOY,

By Rev. A. J. Ryan. Young as the youngest who donned the gray, True as the truest that wore it — Brave as the bravest, he marched away (Hot tears on the cheeks of his mother lay), Triumphantly waved oiu fas one day, He fell in the iiout before it.

Firm as the firmest, where duty led, He hurried without a falter; Bold as the boldest, he fought and bled, And the day was won — but the field was red, And the bleod of his fresh young heart was shed On his country's hallowed altar.

On the trampled bieast of the battle plain, Where the foremost ranks had wrestled, On his pale, pure face not a mark of pain (His mother d teams they will meet again), The fairest form amid all the slain, Like a child asleep he nestled.

In the solemn shades of the woods that swept The field where his comrades found him : They buned him there — and the not tears crept Into strong men's eyes that had seldom wept (His mother — God pity her! — smiled and slept, Dreaming her arms were around him). A grave in the woods w ith the grass o'er-

A grave in the heart of his mother — His clay m the one lies lifeless and lone: There is not a name, there is not a stone — And only the wind of the voice inaketh moan O'er the grave where neveT a, flower is strewn, — But his memory lives in the other.