Classic Poem

With each fresh victim in the strife,
When war's dire terrors round us roll,
I pity neither friend, nor wife,
I pity not the heroic soul.

The wife will soon new comfort gain,
His friend the best of friends forget,
And scarce a single soul remain,
That, until death, remembers yet.

Amid the poor, prosaic round
Of things, which here so falsely show,
No tears are true, and sacred, found,
Save such as from a mother flow.

The sons, in battlefield who sleep,
Her tears to memory fond recall;
E'en like to willow-trees, which weep
O'er boughs, that ever earthward fall.