Endowed in perpetuity by the Glenna Luschei Fund for Excellence

None but the Hero

None but the Hero

By Ann Williams

Who will give us a pattern
For hero clothes?

He is returning weary
Of laurel withered by the sun,
Of battle armor and medals
Now his work is done.
Though new things are ready
He will wear the old instead,
Shoe, scuffed and easy;
Torn hat upon his head;
Blue shirt without a tie
And pants turned gray by soap
Because these things restore in him
An almost vanished hope.

None but the hero has
A pattern for his clothes,
Measured by months of longing,
Cut from cloth he knows.

Prairie Schooner, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Summer 1944)

Biography

Ann Williams lived in Kansas City, Missouri. With her husband she ran a real estate office, where, according to her 1944 Contributors Notes, she "[wrote] poetry between phone calls."

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