The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-11-11
My old mother writes:
In your library

That you gathered In all parts Of the world,
Among vases from CHINA
And the heather gods of the South Sea.
Among your Buddhas
And Shivas and Krishnss
Lies a youthful chap
Fresh from high school,
Eighteen years old.
Hut he cannot see your treasures,
They stabbed out his ayes
In Loucin near Liese.
In your Indian Room
Lies a sergeant
lie was laughing to-day and Jokinsly tossed
Your little elephants of ivory.
He always says: soon will return to the
front"
The day before yesterday they cut OF
Both Of his legs
And he does not know ".
In the room decorated with my Beloved
Dutch
The Teniers and ostade. tn. Koekko.k and
Nerbockhoeven.
Lies his right arm torn 10 pieces
lieutenant Of dragons,
lie does not like the paintings. not knowing
them.
So bought him yesterday
''Kaiscr" picture and hung II over his bed
You do not believe how glad It made him.
But in the adjoining room
with your ancestors
Iies n captain OF the ruard.
He Is a. pale as his linen,
Sleeps all the time,
SO much blood did he lose;
But. n he's awake. he looks az the pictures
And says: He over there surely fought
At Sedan in Eighteen seventy,
And he at Grossgoerschen a hundred years
ago,
And the old on. over there with tn. braid,
lie fought at Leuthen."
In the terrace room. the one 10 the left
Lies another lieutenant, he asked that his
bed
He placed close TO the window.
He never speaks. but stares all the time
Into our garden, and the monastery adIoin-
Where the old monks walking
lie has bride, she was In Paris
When the war broke out-snd she di.ap.
peared.
And he heard Of her--nothinE
Perhaps she IL dead, he thinks. perhap.-
Perhaps-Then he signs and sroan-:
Perhaps" And he kisses her picture
she very beautiful.
His poor. German bride.
In the garden room lie. a major.
He is scoding all day long,
shot through the abdomen, must be very
painful.
And he does not suffer 80 much ~ he can
scod
The Russ tn. Jap and the damned English
SO ask him; How do you feela"
He always says: THE damned rats
Bit hole into my stomach
There is one, In the small guest room.
senior Lieutenant of the Eighty second,
He's shot In tho head
But not very dangerous.
lie said yesterday: Doctor
I have hfty thousand marks:
They yours II YOU patch me up
So can return to the front
In three weeks" CHATS what they all
Think
In your bedroom lies husssr
He has nineteen wounds all over.
From shrapnei Are.
They brought him unconsciou, fortnight
ago.
lie grosns much ana yeils loud;
Never awoke once
In all that time
But his hot hand clinche.
HIS Iron Cross
The doctor says: we surely
VIII save him, n he does no; 81.
From starvation"
In the dining room lie thr~.
pioneer and two Of the infantry
Such dear blond chaps.
They will be saved.
But the pioneer
Is doomed.
For dumdum wound.
Are difficult to heal
About everything writes nv mother,
About the uhlans in the breakfast rosm.
The two chasseurs In the paror.
The general
Who lies In the state room
About everything writes old mother
But about herself
She does not say a word
My mothers house ovNrlooks the Rhine
Is now a hospital for sixteen
And yet ts only one such house
or many thousands In Germany.
My mother Is an old lady,
Perhaps sixty or even more
My mother Is German woman
And Yet only one OF so many millions
II II. EwERs