<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">To a Son on the Death of his Mother</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">O HAPPY mother, happy son,</p><p class="line">Who--twain in one--</p><p class="line">For half a hundred years have grown</p><p class="line">Like root and fruit, like branch and stem,</p><p class="line">With the same surgent sap in them,--</p><p class="line">I, who am blown,</p><p class="line">Alone,</p><p class="line">Along the ledges of precipitous Space,</p><p class="line">Who for eight lustrums have not known</p><p class="line">A mother's face,</p><p class="line">Do envy you</p><p class="line">That kinship true,</p><p class="line">That mother-son embrace,</p><p class="line">That sympathy of soul in unity of race.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">My body fiercely clings</p><p class="line">To life, to star, to tree,</p><p class="line">To old material mortal things</p><p class="line">I touch, and hear, and see.</p><p class="line">I nurse my feeble breath,</p><p class="line">Dreading the reckless death</p><p class="line">Who sets man's spirit free;--</p><p class="line">Dreading the depth and height,</p><p class="line">The darkness and the light</p><p class="line">Of lonely fathomless infinity.</p><p class="line">But you will go unfearingly to die,</p><p class="line">Will tear the trammels of your body off,</p><p class="line">And like a tawdry tattered garment doff</p><p class="line">The earth and sky.</p><p class="line">Dreading no limbo desolate and dumb,</p><p class="line">For through the darkness will your mother come</p></div></body></html> · Great War