What does our country need? Not armies standing
With sabres gleaming ready for the fight.
Not increased navies, skillful and commanding,
To bound the waters with an iron might.
Not haughty men with glutted purses trying
To purchase souls, and keep the power of place.
Not jeweled dolls with one another vieing
For palms of beauty, elegance and grace.
But we want women, strong of soul, yet lowly,
With that rare meekness, born of gentleness,
Women whose lives are pure and clean and holy,
The women whom all little children bless.
Brave, earnest women, helpful to each other,
With finest scorn for all things low and mean.
Women who hold the names of wife and mother,
Far nobler than the title of a Queen.
O these are they who mold the men of story,
These mothers, ofttimes shorn of grace and youth,
Who, worn and weary, ask no greater glory
Than making some young soul the home of truth,
Who sow in hearts all fallow for the sowing
The seeds of virtue and of scorn for sin,
And, patient, watch the beauteous harvest growing
And weed out tares which crafty hands cast in.
Women who do not hold the gift of beauty
As some rare treasure to be bought and sold,
But guard it as a precious aid to duty--
The outer framing of the inner gold;
Women who, low above their cradles bending,
Let flattery's voice go by, and give no heed,
While their pure prayers like incense are ascending:
_These_ are our country's pride, our country's need.
"LEUDEMANN'S-ON-THE-RIVER."
Toward even when the day leans down
To kiss the upturned face of night,
Out just beyond the loud-voiced town
I know a spot of calm delight.
Like crimson arrows from a quiver
The red rays pierce the waters flowing
While we go dreaming, singing, rowing
To Leudemann's-on-the-River.
The hills, like some glad mocking-bird,
Send back our laughter and our singing,
While faint--and yet more faint is heard
The steeple bells all sweetly ringing.
Some message did the winds deliver
To each glad heart that August night,
All heard, but all heard not aright;
By Leudemann's-on-the-River.
Night falls as in some foreign clime,
Between the hills that slope and rise.
So dusk the shades at landing time,
We could not see each other's eyes.
We only saw the moonbeams quiver
Far down upon the stream! that night
The new moon gave but little light
By Leudemann's-on-the-River.
How dusky were those paths that led
Up from the river to the hall.
The tall trees branching overhead
Invite the early shades that fall.
In all the glad blithe world, oh, never
Were hearts more free from care than when
We wandered through those walks, we ten,
By Leudemann's-on-the-River.
So soon, so soon, the changes came.
This August day we two alone,
On that same river, not the same,
Dream of a night forever flown.
Strange distances have come to sever
The hearts that gayly beat in pleasure,
Long miles we cannot cross or measure--
From Leudemann's-on-the-River.
We'll pluck two leaves, dear friend, to-day.
The green, the russet! seems it strange
So soon, so soon, the leaves can change!
Ah, me! so runs all life away.
This night wind chills me, and I shiver;
The Summer time is almost past.
One more good-bye--perhaps the last
To Leudemann's-on-the-River.