Shall I See My Boy Again

Must I die so soon? ah, far away

By blue Ohio's shore,

A little group waits patiently

Till this sad war is o'er;

A little face is often pressed

Against the window pane,

Oh, chaplain only tell me this

Shall I see my boy again?

Must I never press close to my heart

The rings of shining hair,

Or listen to my bright-eyed child

Whisper his evening prayer,

Shall I never hear his bounding step

Across the cottage floor?

It were not hard to die, chaplain,

Could I see my boy once more.

When morning broke with solemn tread

On old Potomac's banks,

His comrades laid the soldier down -

Discharged from the ranks,

But many a day o'er western hills,

By blue Ohio's shore,

A little boy will patient wait,

When this sad war is o'er.

This poem appeared in the Burlington Sentinel. along with the following notation: A soldier of the Army of the Potomac was dying of fever, and being informed by the chaplain that he had but a few hours to live, he raised his homesick eyes with a world of tenderness in their shadowy depths, to the chaplain's face, asking sadly: "And never see my little boy again?"