Poems (Kennedy)/Working for The Red Cross
WORKING FOR THE RED CROSS
THE room is long and wide; the hum Of quick machines is on the air;And a babel soft of many tongues, And smiles and whispered words are there In that long room.
For at the tables and the whirring wheels Are women, sewing deft and swift,The things a wounded soldier needs When caught to life from death's dark drift, Flotsam of war.
They come of sires of olden bloody wars, These sewers in the summer sun;Through generations long since dead Their strain of ancestry has run On History's page.
Here sit, in quiet groups, "Colonial Dames," Plying their needles while they tellAncestral stories of fierce Indian strife, And how was brought, through chaos dark as hell, The nation's soul.
And there the D. A. R.'s knit on and on, And blend a record with the threadOf how grim Revolution shook the hills And trampled fields were stained with red Of their brave sires.
Here, too, are gray-haired women looking back At wavering lines of Blue and Gray;They stitch into each garment's hem Pale memories of that vanished day, And kiss each seam.
And these—these other women grave of face, Folding the "dressings," lined and pressed?These are the mothers of the men Gone forth upon the new war quest Where Freedom calls—
The brave, proud mothers and the "best beloved" Of all the gallant men they spare;They leave a blessing in each fold And sew in every seam a prayer That peace may come.
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So here in this long room are gathered up The threads that spin the martial creedOur country holds; and here there brood The spirit-wings that patriots need Of love and faith.
The needles stop, the swift wheels softly whirr, The sun goes golden to the west;The Red Cross workers fold the garments by: God keep each wearer safe and blest— That is our prayer.