A chicken-hearted boy was Jim,
A lad with a gentle face and eye.
The boys all joined in a laugh at him
Whenever he chanced to be passing by.
He wouldn’t set foot on a helpless thing.
For a crawling worm he’d turn aside.
He was always making a splint or sling
For some wounded creature that else had died.
Well, Jim grew up, and the war came on.
Justice and right in the dust lay low.
One day they noticed that Jim was gone,
And wondered if he could face the foe.
It was said that no braver soldier fought
In all the marshaled ranks than Jim;
From many battles he finally brought
The name of a hero home with him.
We looked to see a steely eye
And a hardened face from his soldier ways,
But the same old lad came marching by
With the gentle eyes of his boyhood days.
He had heard the voices of battle ring;
He had faced the peril from death’s grim shore;
But to-day he treads on no helpless thing,
Though they call him chicken-heart no more.
[Two illustrations cover the time span of the poem. The first
illustration’s foreground has a boy facing the viewer, walking along a
neighborhood street, and approaching a small, sitting dog whose back
faces the viewer. The street bends right and into the background past
homes and a few neighbors looking in the boy’s direction. A church
steeple is prominent above the homes and trees. The second illustration
has the same viewpoint of the neighborhood. People line the side of the
street, their backs to the viewer, as a troop formation carrying an
American flag parades towards the viewer.]