Grandpa's poems part 2

Here's a poem Grandpa wrote for me when I got my tonsils out at age 4. This required a hospital stay in those days, and here is my grandfather's message to (and about) me.

A LITTLE SOLDIER

All of the pages of history
Tell us again and again
Of the endless list of heroes
Of sea and mountain and plain

St. George old England's hero,
Braving the dragon's flame,
Bruce the darling of Scotland
Who fondly cherish his name.

Tell, Switzerland's archer,
Coolly drawing his bow;
Nelson, Drake, and Wallace,
Brave men we all know.

But they were men fullgrown,
Forged in the furnace of life,
Moulded in body and spirit,
Ready armed for the strife.

Even the Biblical David,
He whom Goliath slew,
Was a sturdy youth of stature,
For many a summer he knew.

But Keith the sturdy-hearted
Four summers alone could claim,
When on the roll of heroes
Won the right to place his name.

For into the mystic realms
Which many a man doth dread,
The hospital halls he entered
With firm and steadfast tread.

And a steadfast little soldier
He remained his whole stay through,
Admired by doctors and nurses,
Loved by the patients too.

We're proud of you Keith, my darling.
Proud of you, one and all.
In body a tiny fellow,
In spirit ten feet tall.



Now, to hear tell from my parents I was quite the whiny kid, in this case crying my whole time in the Montreal Children's Hospital. But Grandpa always knew how to put a kind face on things, and in this poem pays me tribute that I almost certainly did not earn.

I love the part of verse six that starts "For into mystic realms Which many doth dread"; it makes me feel like I was Dr. Strange of to battle Dormammu! Grandpa, of course, had never heard of Steve Ditko or Stephen Strange so that's just my wishful thinking.