In Remembrance

Gray Gauntlet
by Elmina Atkinson
first published in The Bookman

Gray Gauntlet, you of the wristlets wrought
Of home-spun soft and gray,
Do you hear the flashing needles click
Three hundred miles away?
Oh, it’s purl and p lain,
And a toss of the arm,
For freeing the endless thread:
And mystic whisp’rings with each stitch
Too sacred to e’er be said.

Gray Gauntlet, you of the sword must go,
We of the spindle stay:
And our needles speed that our lads may march
Mail-coated in woolen gray.
Oh, it’s slip and bind,
And seam and count,
And turn the heels with care:
No craven fears in the meshes hide
But only a murmured prayer.