The Rappahannock ran in the reign of good Queen Anne,
All townless from the mountains to the sea,
Old Jamestown was forlorn and King Williamsburg scarce born —
'Twas the year of Blenheim's victory,
Whose trumpets died away in far Virginia
On the cabin of an old tobacco farm,
Where a planter's little wife to a little girl gave life
And the fire in the chimney made it warm.

It was little Mary Ball, and she had no fame at all,
But the world was all the same as if she had;
For she had the right to breathe and to tottle and to teethe,
And to love some other cunning little lad:
Though he proved a widower, it was all the same to her,
For he gave her many a daughter and a son,
And the family was large and the oldest, little George,
Was the hope of little Widow Washington.

That name resounded not in the time we have forgot,
It was nothing more than Smith or Jones or Ball;
And George's big half brothers had the call on their stepmother's
Affection, like the babes of her own stall;
They paid the larger taxes and the Ayletts and Fairfaxes
Received them in their families and lands,
While the widow thought upon it, as she rode in her sunbonnet,
Midst her slaves who tilled her gulleys and her sands;

Till they sought to take her George upon the royal barge,
And give him a commission and a crest,
When her heart cried out " O, no! something says he must not go;
My first born is a father to the rest. "
She could find him little schooling, but he did not learn much fooling,
And he dragged the mountains o'er with chain and rod.
The Blue Ridge was his cover and the Indian his lover
And his Duty was his Sovereign and God.

Still her rival in his heart was the Military art,
And the epaulettes she dreaded still were there.
There are households still where glory is a broken-hearted story,
And the drum is a mockery and snare.
From the far-off Barbadoes, from the yell of Frenchmen foes,
From the ghosts of Braddock's unavailing strife,
She beheld her boy return and his bridal candles burn,
And a widow like herself become his wife.

By Potomac's pleasant tide he was settled with his bride,
Overseeing horses, hounds and cocks and wards,
And it seemed but second nature to go to the legislature
And play his hand at politics and cards;
Three-score-and-ten had come when the widow heard the drum:
" My God! " she cried, " what demon is at large? "
'Tis the conflict with the King, 'tis two worlds a mustering,
And the call of Duty comes to mother's George.

" O war! To plague me so! Must my first born ever go? "
The answer is the bugle and the gun.
The town fills up again with the horse of Mercer's men,
And the name they call aloud is " Washington. "
In the long, distracting years none may count the widow's tears;
She is banished o'er the mountains from her farm;
She is old and lives with strangers, while ride wide the King's red rangers,
And the only word is " Arm! " and " Arm! " and " Arm! "

" Come home and see your son, the immortal Washington!
He has beat the King and mighty Cornwallis! "
They crowd her little door and she sees her boy once more,
But there is no glory in him like his kiss.
The Marquises and Dukes, in their orders and perukes,
The Aids-de-camp, the Generals and all,
Stand by to see and listen how her aged eyes will glisten
To hear from him the tale of Yorktown's fall.

Upon that her lips are dumb to the trumpet and the drum;
All their pageantry is vanity and stuff.
So he leans upon her breast she cares nothing for the rest —
It is he and that is victory enough!
In the life that mothers give is their thirst that man shall live
And the species never lose the legacy,
To love again on earth and repeat the wondrous birth —
That is glory — that is immortality.

Unto Fredericksburg at last, when her four-score years are past,
Now gray himself, he rides all night to say:
" Madame — mother — ere I went, to become the President,
I have come to kiss you till another day. "
" No, George; the sight of thee, which I can hardly see,
Is all, for all — good-by! I can be brave.
Fulfill your great career as I have fulfilled my sphere!
My station can be nothing but the grave. "

The mother's love sank down, and its sunset on his crown
Shone like the dying beams of perfect day.
He has none like her to mix in the draught of politics
The balm that softens injury away.
But he was his mother's son till his weary race was done;
Her gravity, her peace, her golden mean,
Shed on the State the good of her sterling womanhood,
And like her own was George's closing scene.