TO THE RETURNING BRAVE, a poem

COME home! The Land that sent you forth
From East and West, from South and North,
Looks wistfully beyond her gates,
Extends her arms and waits—and waits!

At duty's call she stilled her woe;
She smiled through tears and bade you go
To face the death you would not shun.
Brave hearts, return! Your task is done.

Not as you journeyed come you back!
A glory is about your track
Of deeds that vanquished tyranny
And set a tortured people free:

Deeds, sprung of manhood's finest grace,
That envious Time shall not efface;
Deeds that proclaim a Nation's worth,
And crown the Land that gave them birth.

America but waits to greet
And bless you, kneeling at her feet,
Your standards fair in honor furled,
The proudest mother in the world!

Come home! The Land that sent you forth
From East and West, from South and North,
Looks wistfully beyond her gates,
Extends her arms and waits!

"To the Returning Brave" by Florence Earle Coates. Above as published in Poems (1916) Volume I. Published as "Welcome" in The Outlook (3 September 1898) and in Mine and Thine (1904). Also published as "Welcome to Dewey" in Life and Heroic Deeds of Admiral Dewey, Including Battles in the Philippines, & etc. (1899).