FAMILY HISTORY: POETRY Collection written by Elsie Strawn ARMSTRONG
  
  File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Les Howard Strawn
  
  Copyright 2006.  All rights reserved.
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/
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  When this long predicted, awful war commenced, I felt very bad.  I still 
  hoped it would not be in my day, and sitting here alone, hearing the music and 
  knowing my grandsons and nephews and perhaps some of my sons, too, were going, 
  thoughts like the following occupied my mind.
  
  Protect them, Heaven!
      My faltering tongue
  Could scarce to Heaven
      The prayer address.
  For oh, the heart
      From which it sprung,
  Felt the keen pressure
      Of distress.
  
  It bled for friends
      To distance borne,
  Departed, never to return.
      O freedom, must they sacred tree
  Be nourished still by tears and blood,
      Must our expiring kindred by
  Round thy reeking alter strewed?
  
  The North and South
      Have fallen out!
  A shame to nations,
      What about?
  The South has Negroes,
      The North has none,
  And that's the way
      This war begun.
  
  Envy, ambition,
      Is the the bane
  On which our people
      Seem insane.
  That Negro wealth
      Should be the cause,
  Why should they break
      All nature's laws.
  
  Must sons, grandson,
      Nephew go
  To fight their cousins,
      Not their foe,
  And leave their farms
      And homes and labor,
  To go and fight
      Their friends and neighbors?
  
  But go they must, yes, to a man,
      And save the Union if they can,
  The Constitution is at stake,
      Good care of this, they ought to take.
  
  Then go, ye gallant warriors, go,
      Arrest destruction's swift career,
  In might vengeance crush the foe,
      And bid your hidden strength appear.
  
  May heaven direct each patriot arm,
      And shield each patriot breast from harm,
  And if the hero yields his breath,
      Great God, receive his parting sigh.
  
  And call him from the realm of death,
      To purer mansions in the sky,
  And sweetly may his ashes rest,
      By all his country's wishes blessed.