Siege

Maternal veins unnourished may yield them now no more
Their needful food, and they are carried from the door,
Cold in little coffins, fresh flowers in their breast.
With pale, starved mothers giving thanks that they are gone to rest.
Last Christmas eve a father talked with such a mother
Of how next year their youngest born, the tiny baby brother,
Would be ready, like his sister now, to have the tiny shoes
Put out before the nursery door, as little children use ;
To be filled with dainty trifles, tokens of parental love,
Which are innocently feigned to be mysterious treasure-trove,
Brought while they sleep for babes by Jesus, holy child above.
Alas ! before this Christmas came, the merry girl and boy
Both vanished from the humble hearth ; and all the mother's joy
Dwindled into a laying wreaths on each fresh-mounded grave.
Hoping that she may join them soon, and her slaughtered soldier brave.