Unknown
Fold away all your bright-tinted dresses,
Turn the key on your jewels to-day,
And the wealth of your tendril-like tresses
Braid back in a serious way;
No more delicate gloves, no more laces,
No more trifling in boudoir or bower,
But come with your souls in your faces
To meet the stern wants of the hour.
Look around. By the torchlight unsteady
The dead and the dying seem one–
What! trembling and paling already,
Before your dear mission’s begun?
These wounds are more precious than ghastly–
Time presses her lips to each scar,
While she chants of that glory which vastly
Transcends all the horrors of war.
Pause here by this bedside. How mellow
The light showers down on that brow!
Such a brave, brawny visage, poor fellow!
Some homestead is missing him now.
Some wife shades her eyes in the clearing,
Some mother sits moaning distressed,
While the loved one lies faint but unfearing,
With the enemy’s ball in his breast.
Here’s another–a lad–a mere stripling,
Picked up in the field almost dead,
With the blood through his sunny hair rippling
From the horrible gash in the head.
They say he was first in the action:
Gay-hearted, quick-headed, and witty:
He fought till he dropped with exhaustion
At the gates of our fair southern city.
Fought and fell ‘neath the guns of that city,
With a spirit transcending his years–
Lift him up in your large-hearted pity,
And wet his pale lips with your tears.
Touch him gently; most sacred the duty
Of dressing that poor shattered hand!
God spare him to rise in his beauty,
And battle once more for his land!
Pass on! it is useless to linger
While others are calling your care;
There is need for your delicate finger,
For your womanly sympathy there.
There are sick ones athirst for caressing,
There are dying ones raving at home,
There are wounds to be bound with a blessing,
And shrouds to make ready for some.
They have gathered about you the harvest
Of death in its ghastliest view;
The nearest as well as the furthest
Is there with the traitor and true.
And crowned with your beautiful patience,
Made sunny with love at the heart,
You must balsam the wounds of the nations,
Nor falter nor shrink from your part.
And the lips of the mother will bless you,
And angels, sweet-visaged and pale,
And the little ones run to caress you,
And the wives and the sisters cry hail!
But e’en if you drop down unheeded,
What matter? God’s ways are the best:
You have poured out your life where ’twas needed,
And he will take care of the rest.
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem is a direct address, and its urgency drives everything that follows. It speaks to women on the home front and does not flatter them with softness or distance. Instead, it asks for renunciation. The opening commands are practical and symbolic at the same time: put away fine dresses, jewelry, gloves, and lace. These items stand in for a life of comfort and separation from the realities of war. What the poem demands is not just physical presence in hospitals and sickrooms, but a visible change in attitude. The phrase about coming “with your souls in your faces” signals that this is meant to be serious, public, and unguarded work.
Once inside the space of care, the poem refuses to ease the reader into it. The dead and dying blur together under unstable torchlight. Fear and hesitation are anticipated and challenged immediately. The speaker does not deny the horror, but reframes it. Wounds are called “precious,” not because they are beautiful, but because they carry meaning. Time itself is imagined as honoring them, pressing lips to scars and turning pain into remembered glory. This move is central to the poem’s worldview. Suffering is not random or pointless; it is something that can be absorbed into a larger story of endurance and sacrifice.
The individual scenes at the bedside give the poem its emotional weight. The wounded men are described not as anonymous bodies, but as sons, husbands, and boys. Each one is linked back to a home somewhere else, where someone waits or grieves. This keeps the focus on connection rather than spectacle. The poem lingers just long enough to make each figure human, then moves on, mirroring the relentless pace of real caregiving in wartime. There is no time to dwell, even when pity is strong.
The young soldier, barely more than a boy, is especially important. His bravery is emphasized, but so is his vulnerability. The poem allows tenderness here, even tears, but it quickly folds that tenderness back into purpose. The hope that he might recover and “battle once more” shows how tightly care and continuation of war are bound together. Healing is not an end in itself; it is part of sustaining the conflict.
As the poem progresses, it broadens again. The women addressed are reminded that their care must extend to everyone: near and far, loyal and disloyal, familiar and unknown. This is one of the poem’s more demanding ideas. Sympathy is not selective. The work is framed as national rather than personal, with women asked to “balsam the wounds of the nations.” Their patience and love are treated as essential resources, just as necessary as weapons or strategy.
Recognition is promised, but it is presented as secondary. Blessings from mothers, affection from children, praise from others may come, but they are not guaranteed. The poem prepares its audience for invisibility and exhaustion. What ultimately matters is having given oneself fully. The final reassurance is religious rather than social. If the work goes unnoticed, God will account for it.
As a war poem, this piece occupies a complicated space. It does not glorify combat directly, but it supports the war by sanctifying care, endurance, and self-erasure. Women are given a vital role, but it is one defined by sacrifice and emotional labor rather than choice or power. The poem is effective because it acknowledges horror without turning away from it, and because it treats care as serious, difficult work rather than sentimental duty. At the same time, it reveals how war expands its demands far beyond the battlefield, asking not only for bodies and blood, but for whole lives reshaped around need, loss, and unending responsibility.