Louisiana Buttons

These buttons, please?--- you’d like to know

Why, when they are not gold,

I seem to love to wear them so---

Well, child, you shall be told;

These were my boy’s ---I had a boy

With eyes like yours, and hair

The very shade, gold and alloy,

The self-same walk and air.

And that is why I like you so,

And why you shall be told

bout the buttons---that you know

Are neither gilt nor gold,

However prized, mere trinkets, toys,

Buttons of factory make---

All true, but then they were my boy’s--

I wear them for his sake.

Strange buttons, child?  It may be so,

A stranger’s eyes might deem

These tokens strange, but, do you know,

Part of myself they seem--

As much myself, at either wrist

Their baleful brazen glow,

As the blue veins that throb and twist

Through the pale flesh below.

So many years I’ve worn them there!

Have pressed them to my lips

So many times with tears and prayer!

Have slid my finger-tips

Round and around their circles bright,

My restless nerves to soothe,

So oft, that I have ceased in fright

Lest I should wear them smooth.

For on them is the seal and sign’

Of all he loved and lost;

Yet often when the sea-birds shine

I count what these have cost:

Badges of service to the State

He gave unclaimed, as due;

Pledges of love, as pure as great.

And proved by death as true.

Change them for diamonds?  No, indeed!

Not for the Koh-i-noor!

His wounded heart again would bleed,

His sword-arm rise once more,

If all earth’s gems could buy from me

These amulets, these charms,

These relics within my arms.