16
THE BETTER PART.
His little ones may cry for bread, His hapless widow freeze—Our sympathies are with the dead, But not with such as these.
We pass them in the busy street, Nor heed their pleading moans;Their hearts may bleed beneath our feet— We honor dead men's bones.
We give our tears, we heap our gold, Above their crumbling dust;Forgetting that we still may hold A higher, purer trust.
Forgetting that a loaf of bread Fed to a soldier's child,Is worth more to those heroes dead Than all the stones we have piled.
