Mothers of Soldiers

What should we say to you, O glorious Mothers
Sacred and full of sorrows, we childless ones?
We kneel to you as haloed women, we others,
The slighter lives that could not give their sons.
Not ours the exquisite anguish of surrender,
The deep, still courage that day by day endures,
The rosary of memories piercing-tender,
The travail and the triumph that are yours.

The agony and the glory of creation
You have partaken; in that steep way you trod
You have made yourselves part of the world’s salvation,
You have shared the passion and the joy of God.
With splendor of sunrise and the surging morn,
Out of your pain shall Man be newly born.