Alston Burleigh, "The Brave Son" (1919)
Mid the deep'ning shades of the fading day,
Fancied the warrior he would be;
He scattered his foes with his wooden sword
And put to fight a mighty horde--
Ere he crept to his daddy's knee.
A soldier crawled o'er the death-stren plain,
And he uttered the name of his love, in vain,
As he stumbled over the crest;
He fought with the fierceness of dark despair
And drove the cowering for to his lair--
Ere he crept to his Father's breast.
First published in The Crisis, March 1919