Amanuensis Monday - Grandma Hill's Poetry, Week 35

Hope

There is a grandmother,

living on Bancroft Street,

Who waits, not too patiently,

for the sound of the youthful feet

That were so ruthlessly sent away

to tread on a foreign strand

Hoping the time is now short,

when again they’ll walk

on their homeland.

And she hopes that never, never again,

the occasion will arise

When war’s devastation will

darken the world’s skies

And that our country will take

the place of a kindly big brother

Teaching other nations how to live

at peace with each other.

Twice, in my lifetime, I’ve seen

my boys sent to a foreign shore

One of them, lying asleep in France,

will return to me, nevermore.

But let’s hope, this time,

your task will not have been in vain

And that the four of you, safe and sound,

will soon be in your homes again.

Nancy Jane Wiley Hill (1875-1960) was always writing something.  Many of those poems are now in the possession of her granddaughter Shirley Kern.  Shirley, with the help of her sister-in-law Ruth Ormsby, transcribed these poems in 1996 for a Hill-Ormsby-Kern family reunion.  I am going to post many of these poems so that they may be enjoyed by all.

These are copyright 1996 and reprinted with permission.