The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
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The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
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Table of Contents | |
Section | Page |
Start of eBook | 1 |
INDEX | 1 |
Over Here | 1 |
Alarm, The
America
April Thoughts
As It Looks to the Boy
Battle Prayer, A
Beautifying the Flag
Better Thing, The
Big Deeds, The
Bigger Than His Dad
Boy Enlists, The
Boy’s Adventure, The
Call, The
Call to Service, The
Change, The
Chaplain, The
Christmas, 1918
Christmas Box, The
Christmas Greeting, A
Complacent Slacker, The
Constant Beauty
Creed, A
Discovery of a Soul, The
Do Your All
Drafted
Duty
Easy Service
Envy
Everywhere in America
Exempt
Father’s Prayer, A
Father’s Thoughts, A
Father’s Tribute, A
Flag, The
Flag on the Farm, The
Fly a Clean Flag
Follow the Flag
For Your Boy and Mine
Friendly Greeting, The
From Laughter to Labor
Future, The
General Pershing
Girl He Left Behind, The
Glory of Age, The
Gold Givers, The
Good Luck
Good Soldier, A
Hate
Here We Are!
His Room
His Santa Claus
Honor Roll, The
Hope
I Follow a Famous Father
Ideals
If He Should Meet a Mother There
Important Thing, The
Joy to Be, The
July the Fourth, 1917
Kelly Ingram
Life’s Slacker
Living
Memorial Day
Mother Faith, The
Mother on the Sidewalk, The
Mothers and Wives
My Part
New Year, The
Next of Kin
Our Duty to Our Flag
Out of It All
Over Here
Patriot, A
Patriotic Creed, A
Patriotic Wish, A
Plea, A
Prayer, A
Prayer, 1918, A
Princess Pats, The
Proof of Worth, The
Prophecy
Rebellion
Reflection
Runner McGee
See It Through
Selfishness
Show the Flag
Soldier on Crutches, The
Soldierly
Spring in the Trenches
Struggle, The
Sympathy
Taking His Place
Thanksgiving
Things That Make a Soldier Great, The
Thoughts of a Soldier
Time for Deeds, The
To a Kindly Critic
To a Lady Knitting
To the Men at Home
Undaunted, The
United
Unsettled Scores, The
Waiter at the Camp, The
Warriors
War’s Homecoming
We Need a Few More Optimists
We’ve Had a Letter From the Boy
We Who Stay at Home
When the Drums Shall Cease to Beat
Why We Fight
Wish, A
Wrist Watch Man, The
Your Country Needs You
* * * * *
Pledged to the bravest and the
best,
We stand, who cannot share the fray,
Staunch for the danger and the test.
For them at night we kneel and pray.
Be with them, Lord, who serve the truth,
And make us worthy of our youth!
Here mother-love and father-love
Unite in love of country now;
Here to the flag that flies above,
Our heads we reverently bow;
Here as one people, night and day,
For victory we work and pray.
Nor race nor creed shall difference
make,
Nor bigot mar
the zealot’s plan;
We give our all for Freedom’s
sake,
Each man a king,
each king a man.
Make us the equal, Lord, we
pray
Of them who die for truth
to-day!
Let us as gladly give our
best,
Let us as bravely
pay the price
As they, who in the bitter
test
Meet the supremest
sacrifice.
Oh, God! Wherever we
are led,
Let us be worthy of our dead!
Let us not compromise the truth,
Let us not cringe so much in fear
That foes may whisper to our youth
That we have failed in courage here.
Lord, strengthen us, that they may know
Our spirits follow where they go!
Why We Fight
This is the thing we fight:
A cry of terror in the night;
A ship on work of mercy bent—
A carrier of the sick and maimed—
Beneath the cruel waters sent,
And those that did it, unashamed.
A woman who had tried to fill
A mother’s place; had nursed the ill
And soothed the troubled brows of pain
And earned the dying’s grateful prayers,
Before a wall by soldiers slain!
And such a poor pretext was theirs!
Old women pierced by bayonets
grim
And babies slaughtered for
a whim,
Cathedrals made the sport
of shells,
No mercy, even
for a child,
As though the imps of all
the hells
Were crazed with
drink and running wild.
All this we fight—that
some day when
Good sense shall come again to men,
Our children’s children may not read
This age’s history thus defamed
And find we served a selfish creed
And ever be of us ashamed!
America
God has been good to men. He gave
His Only Son their souls to save,
And then he made a second gift,
Which from their dreary lives should lift
The tyrant’s yoke and set them free
From all who’d throttle liberty.
He gave America to men—
Fashioned this land we love, and then
Deep in her forests sowed the seed
Which was to serve man’s earthly need.
When wisps of smoke first
upwards curled
From pilgrim fires, upon the
world
Unnoticed and unseen, began
God’s second work of
grace for man.
Here where the savage roamed
and fought,
God sowed the seed of nobler
thought;
Here to the land we love to
claim,
The pioneers of freedom came;
Here has been cradled all
that’s best
In every human mind and breast.
For full four hundred years
and more
Our land has stretched her
welcoming shore
To weary feet from soils afar;
Soul-shackled serfs of king
and czar
Have journeyed here and toiled
and sung
And talked of freedom to their
young,
And God above has smiled to
see
This precious work of liberty,
And watched this second gift
He gave
The dreary lives of men to
save.
And now, when liberty’s
at bay,
And blood-stained tyrants
force the fray,
Worn warriors, battling for
the right,
Crushed by oppression’s
cruel might,
Hear in the dark through which
they grope
America’s glad cry of
hope:
Man’s liberty is not
to die!
America is standing by!
World-wide shall human lives
be free:
America has crossed the sea!
America! the land we love!
God’s second gift from
Heaven above,
Builded and fashioned out
of truth,
Sinewed by Him with splendid
youth
For that glad day when shall
be furled
All tyrant flags throughout
the world.
For this our banner holds
the sky:
That liberty shall never die.
For this, America began:
To make a brotherhood of man.
The Time for Deeds
We have boasted our courage in moments of ease,
Our star-spangled banner we’ve flung on the breeze;
We have taught men to cheer for its beauty and worth,
And have called it the flag of the bravest on earth
Now the dark days are here, we must stand to the test.
Oh, God! let us prove we are true to our best!
We have drunk to our flag, and we’ve talked of the right,
We have challenged oppression to show us its might;
We have strutted for years through the world as a race
That for God and for country, earth’s tyrants would face;
Now the gage is flung down, hate is loosed in the world.
Oh, God! shall our flag in dishonor be furled?
We have said we are brave;
we have preached of the truth,
We have walked in conceit
of the strength of our youth;
We have mocked at the ramparts
and guns of the foe,
As though we believed we could
laugh them all low.
Now oppression has struck!
We are challenged to fight!
Oh, God! let us prove we can
stand for the right!
If in honor and glory our flag is to wave,
If we are to keep this—the land of the brave;
If more than fine words are to fashion our creeds,
Now must our hands and our hearts turn to deeds.
We are challenged by tyrants our strength to reveal!
Oh, God! let us prove that our courage is real!
Everywhere in America
Not somewhere in America, but everywhere
to-day,
Where snow-crowned mountains hold their heads,
the vales where children play,
Beside the bench and whirring lathe, on every
lake and stream
And in the depths of earth below, men share a
common dream—
The dream our brave forefathers had of freedom
and of right,
And once again in honor’s cause, they rally
and
unite.
Not somewhere in America is love
of country
found,
But east and west and north and south once
more the bugles sound,
And once again, as one, men stand to break
their brother’s chains,
And make the world a better place, where only
justice reigns.
The patriotism that is here, is echoed over there,
The hero at a certain post is on guard everywhere.
O’er humble home and mansion rich the starry
banner flies,
And far and near throughout the land the men
of valor rise.
The flag that flutters o’er
your home is fluttering
far away
O’er homes that you have never seen.
The same
impulses sway
The souls of men in distant states. The red,
the
white and blue
Means to one hundred million strong, just what
it means to you.
The self-same courage resolute you feel and
understand
Is throbbing in the breasts of men throughout
this mighty land.
Not somewhere in America, but everywhere to-day,
For justice and for liberty all free men work
and pray.
The Things That Make a Soldier Great
The things that make a soldier great and send him out to die,
To face the flaming cannon’s mouth, nor ever question why,
Are lilacs by a little porch, the row of tulips red,
The peonies and pansies, too, the old petunia bed,
The grass plot where his children play, the roses on the wall:
’Tis these that make a soldier great. He’s fighting for them all.
’Tis not the pomp and pride of kings that make a soldier brave;
’Tis not allegiance to the flag that over him may wave;
For soldiers never fight so well on land or on the foam
As when behind the cause they see the little place called home.
Endanger but that humble street whereon his children run—
You make a soldier of the man who never bore a gun.
What is it through the battle
smoke the valiant soldier sees?
The little garden far away,
the budding apple trees,
The little patch of ground
back there, the children at their play,
Perhaps a tiny mound behind
the simple church of gray.
The golden thread of courage
isn’t linked to castle dome
But to the spot, where’er
it be—the humble spot called home.
And now the lilacs bud again and all is lovely there,
And homesick soldiers far away know spring is in the air;
The tulips come to bloom again, the grass once more is green,
And every man can see the spot where all his joys have been.
He sees his children smile at him, he hears the bugle call,
And only death can stop him now—he’s fighting for them all.
The Flag
We never knew how much the Flag
Could mean, until he went away,
We used to boast of it and brag,
As something of a by-gone day;
But now the Flag can start our tears
In moments of our greatest joy,
Old Glory in the sky appears
The symbol of our little boy.
We knew that sometimes people
wept
To see the Flag
go waving by,
But never guessed the griefs
they kept—
We never understood
just why.
But now our eyes grow quickly
dim,
Our voices choke
with sobs to-day;
The Flag is telling us of
him,
Our little boy
who’s gone away.
We never knew the Flag could
be
So much a part
of human life,
We thought it beautiful to
see
Before these bitter
days of strife;
But now more beautiful it
gleams,
And deeper in
our hearts it dwells;
It is the emblem of our dreams,
For of our little
boy it tells.
A Battle Prayer
God of battles, be with us now:
Guard our sons from the lead of shame,
Watch our sons when the cannons flame,
Let them not to a tyrant bow.
God of battles, to Thee we pray:
Be with each loyal son who fights
In the cause of justice and human rights,
Grant him strength and lead the way.
God of battles, our youth we give
To the battle line on a foreign soil,
To conquer hatred and lust and spoil;
Grant that they and their cause shall live.
Good Luck
Good luck! That’s all I’m saying, as you sail across the sea;
The best o’ luck, in the parting, is the prayer you get from me.
May you never meet a danger that you won’t come safely through,
May you never meet a German that can get the best of you;
Oh! A thousand things may happen when a fellow’s at the front,
A thousand different mishaps, but here’s hoping that they won’t.
Good luck! That’s all I’m saying, as you turn away to go,
Good luck and plenty of it, may it be your lot to know;
May you never meet rough weather, but remember if you do
That the folks at home are wishing that you’ll all come safely through.
Oh! A thousand things may happen when a fellow bears the brunt
Of His Country’s fight for glory, but I’m praying that they won’t.
Good luck! That’s all I’m saying as you’re falling into line;
May the splendor of your service bring you everything that’s fine;
May the fates deal kindly with you, may you never know distress,
And may every task you tackle end triumphant with success.
Oh! A thousand things may happen that with joy your life will fill;
You may not get all the gladness, but I’m hoping that you will.
A Prayer, 1918
Oh, make us worthy,
God, we pray,
To do thy service
Here to-day;
Endow us with
The strength we need
For every
Sacrificial deed!
The Change
’Twas hard to think that he must go,
We knew that we should miss him so,
We thought that he must always stay
Beside us, laughing, day by day;
That he must never know the care
And hurt and grief of life out there.
Then came the call for youth, and he
Talked with his mother and with me,
And suddenly we learned the boy
Was hungering to know the joy
Of doing something real with life,
And that he craved the test of strife.
And so we steeled ourselves
to dread;
To see at night his empty
bed;
To feel the silence and the
gloom
That hovers o’er his
vacant room,
And though we wept the day
he went,
And many a lonely hour we’ve
spent,
We’ve come to think
as he, somehow,
And we are more contented
now;
We’re proud that we
can stand and say
We have a boy who’s
gone away.
And we are glad to know that
he
Is serving where he ought
to be.
It’s queer, the change
that time has brought:
We’re different now
in speech and thought;
His letters home mean joy
to us,
His difficulties we discuss.
When word of his promotion
came,
His mother, with her eyes
aflame
With happiness and pride,
rushed out
To tell the neighbors round
about.
Her boy! Her boy is doing
well!
What greater news can mothers
tell?
I think that pity now we show
For those who have no boys
to go.
Mothers and Wives
Mothers and wives, ’tis the
call to arms
That the bugler yonder prepares to sound;
We stand on the brink of war’s alarms
And your men may lie on a blood-stained
ground.
The drums may play and the flags may fly,
And our boys may don the brown and blue,
And the call that summons brave men to die
Is the call for glorious women, too.
Mothers and wives, if the summons
comes,
You, as ever since war has been,
Must hear with courage the rolling drums
And dry your tears when the flags are seen.
For never has hero fought and died
Who has braver been than the mother, who
Buckled his saber at his side,
And sent him forward to dare and do.
Mothers and wives, should
the call ring out,
It is you must
answer your country’s cry;
You must furnish brave hearts
and stout
For the firing
line where the heroes die.
And never a corpse on the
field of strife
Should be honored
more in his country’s sight
Than the noble mother or noble
wife
Who sent him forth
in the cause of right.
Mothers and wives, ’tis
the call for men
To give their
strength and to give their lives;
But well we know, such a summons
then
Is the call for
mothers and loyal wives,
For you must give us the strength
we need,
You must give
us the boys in blue,
For never a boy or a man shall
bleed
But a mother or
wife shall suffer, too.
The Call to Service
These are the days when little
thoughts
Must cease men’s minds to occupy;
The nation needs men’s larger creeds,
Big men must answer to her cry;
No longer selfish ways we tread,
The greater task lies just ahead.
These are the days when petty things
By all men must be thrust aside;
The country needs men’s finest deeds,
Awakened is the nation’s pride;
Men must forsake their selfish strife
Once more to guard their country’s life.
Kelly Ingram
His name was Kelly Ingram; he was Alabama’s son,
And he whistled “Yankee Doodle,” as he stood beside his gun;
There was laughter in his make-up, there was manhood in his face,
And he knew the best traditions and the courage of his race;
Now there’s not a heart among us but should swell with loyal pride
When he thinks of Kelly Ingram and the splendid way he died.
On the swift Destroyer Cassin he was merely gunner’s mate,
But up there to-day, I fancy, he is standing with the great.
On that grim day last October his position on the craft
Was that portion of the vessel which the sailors christen aft;
There were deep sea bombs beside him to be dropped upon the Hun
Who makes women folks his victims and then gloats o’er what he’s done.
From the lookout came a warning;
came the cry all sailors fear,
A torpedo was approaching,
and the vessel’s doom was near;
Ingram saw the streak of danger,
but he saw a little more,
A greater menace faced them
than that missile had in store;
If those deep sea bombs beside
him were not thrown beneath the wave,
Every man aboard the Cassin
soon would find a watery grave.
It was death for him to linger, but he figured if he ran
And quit his post of duty, ’twould be death for every man;
So he stood at his position, threw those depth bombs overboard,
And when that torpedo struck them, he went forth to meet his Lord.
Oh, I don’t know how to say it, but these whole United States
Should remember Kelly Ingram—he who died to save his mates.
The Joy to Be
Oh, mother, be you brave of heart
and keep
your bright eyes shining;
Some day the smiles of joy shall start and you
shall cease repining.
Beyond the dim and distant line the days of
peace are waiting,
When you shall have your soldier fine, and men
shall turn from hating.
Oh, mother, bear the pain a-while,
as long ago
you bore it;
You suffered then to win his smile, and you
were happier for it;
And now you suffer once again, and bear your
weight of sorrow;
Yet you shall thrill with gladness when he wins
the glad to-morrow.
Oh, mother, when the cannons roar
and all the
brave are fighting,
Remember that the son you bore the wrongs
of earth is righting;
Remember through the hours of pain that he
with all his brothers
Is battling there to win again a happy world
for mothers.
He Should Meet a Mother There
If he should meet a mother there
Along some winding Flanders road,
No extra touch of grief or care
He’ll add unto her heavy load.
But he will kindly take her arm
And tender as her son will be;
He’ll lead her from the path of harm
Because of me.
Be she the mother of his foe,
He will not speak
to her in hate;
My boy will never stoop so
low
As motherhood
to desecrate.
But she shall know what once
I knew—
Eyes that are
glorious to see,
The light of manhood shining
through—
Because of me.
He will salute her as they
meet,
And stand before
her bare of head;
If she be hungry, she may
eat
His last remaining
bit of bread.
She’ll find those splendid
arms and strong
Quick to assist
her, tenderly,
And they will guard her from
all wrong
Because of me.
I miss his thoughtful, loving
care;
I miss his smile
these dreary days;
But should he meet a mother
there,
Helpless and lost
in war’s grim maze,
She need not fear to take
his arm,
As though she’d
reared him at her knee;
My son will shield her from
all harm
Because of me.
A Father’s Tribute
I don’t know what they’ll
put him at, or what
his post may be;
I cannot guess the task that waits for him across
the sea,
But I have known him through the years, and
when there’s work to do,
I know he’ll meet his duty well, I’ll
swear that
he’ll be true.
I sometimes fear that he may die,
but never that
he’ll shirk;
If death shall want him death must go and take
him at his work;
This splendid sacrifice he makes is filled with
terrors grim,
And I have many thoughts of fear, but not one
fear of him.
The foe may rob my life of joy,
the foe may
take my all,
And desolate my days shall be if he shall have
to
fall.
But this I know, whate’er may be the grief
that
I must face,
Upon his record there will be no blemish of
disgrace.
His days have all been splendid
days, there lies
no broken trust
Along the pathway of his youth to molder in
the dust;
Honor and truth have marked his ways, in him
I can be glad;
He is as fine and true a son as ever a father
had.
Runner McGee
(Who had “Return if Possible” Orders.)
“You’ve heard a good
deal of the telephone
wires,” he said as we sat at our ease,
And talked of the struggle that’s taking
men’s
lives in these terrible days o’er the
seas,
“But I’ve been through the thick of
the thing
and I know when a battle’s begun,
It isn’t the phone you depend on for help.
It’s
the legs of a boy who can run.
“It isn’t because of
the phone that I’m here.
To-day you are talking to me
Because of the grit and the pluck of a boy.
His
title was Runner McGee.
We were up to our dead line an’ fighting
alone;
some plan had miscarried, I guess,
And the help we were promised had failed to
arrive. We were showing all signs of
distress.
“Our curtain of fire was
ahead of us still, an’
theirs was behind us an’ thick,
An’ there wasn’t a thing we could
do for ourselves—the
few of us left had to stick.
You haven’t much chance to get central an’
talk
on the phone to the music of guns;
Gettin’ word to the chief is a matter right
then
that is up to the fellow who runs.
“I’d sent four of ’em
back with the R. I. P.
sign, which means to return if you can,
But none of ’em got through the curtain
of fire;
my hurry call died with the man.
Then Runner McGee said he’d try to get through.
I hated to order the kid
On his mission of death; thought he’d never
get
by, but somehow or other he did.
“Yes, he’s dead.
Died an hour after bringing
us word that the chief was aware of our
plight,
An’ for us to hang on to the ditch that
we held;
the reserves would relieve us at night.
Then we stuck to our trench an’ we stuck
to our
guns; you know how you’ll fight when
you know
That new strength is coming to fill up the gaps.
There’s heart in the force of your
blow.
“It wasn’t till later
I got all the facts. They
wanted McGee to remain.
They begged him to stay. He had cheated death
once an’ was foolish to try it again.
‘R. I. P. are my orders,’ he
answered them all,
‘an’ back to the boys I must
go;
Four of us died comin’ out with the news.
It
will help them to know that you know.’”
The Girl He Left Behind
We used to think her frivolous—you
know how
parents are,
A little quick to see the faults and petty flaws
that mar
The girl their son is fond of and may choose
to make his wife,
A little overjealous of the one who’d share
his
life;
But the girl he left behind him when he bravely
marched away
Has blossomed into beauty that we see and need
to-day.
She was with us at the depot, and
we turned our
backs a-while,
And her eyes were sad and misty, though she
tried her best to smile.
Then she put her arm round mother, and it
seemed to me as though
They just grew to love each other, for they
shared a common woe.
Now she often comes to see us, and it seems
to me we find
A heap of solid comfort in the girl he left behind.
“She’s so sensible
and gentle,” mother said last
night to me,
“The kind of girl I’ve often wished
and prayed
his wife would be.
And I like to have her near us, for she understands
my sighs
And I see my brave boy smiling when I look into
her eyes.”
Now the presence of his sweetheart seems to fill
our home with joy.
She’s no longer young and flighty—she’s
the
girl who loves our boy.
A Patriotic Creed
To serve my country day by day
At any humble post I may;
To honor and respect her Flag,
To live the traits of which I brag;
To be American in deed
As well as in my printed creed.
To stand for truth and honest toil,
To till my little patch of soil
And keep in mind the debt I owe
To them who died that I might know
My country, prosperous and free,
And passed this heritage to me.
I must always in trouble’s
hour
Be guided by the men in power;
For God and country I must
live,
My best for God and country
give;
No act of mine that men may
scan
Must shame the name American.
To do my best and play my part,
American in mind and heart;
To serve the flag and bravely stand
To guard the glory of my land;
To be American in deed,
God grant me strength to keep this creed.
His Room
His room is as it used to be
Before he went away,
The walls still keep the pennants he
Brought home but yesterday.
The picture of his baseball team
Still holds its favored spot,
And oh, it seems a dreadful dream
This age of shell and shot!
His golf clubs in the corner
stand;
His tennis racket,
too,
That once the pressure of
his hand
In times of laughter
knew
Is in the place it long has
kept
For us to look
upon.
The room is as it was, except
The boy, himself,
has gone.
The pictures of his girls
are here,
Still smiling
as of yore,
And everything that he held
dear
Is treasured as
before.
Into his room his mother goes
As usual, day
by day,
And cares for it, although
she knows
Our boy is far
away.
We keep it as he left it,
when
He bade us all
good-bye,
Though I confess that, now
and then,
We view it with
a sigh.
For never night shall thrill
with joy
Nor day be free
from gloom
Until once more our soldier
boy
Shall occupy his
room.
Envy
It’s a bigger thing you’re doing than the most of us have done;
We have lived the days of pleasure; now the gray days have begun,
And upon your manly shoulders fall the burdens of the strife;
Yours must be the sacrifices of the trial time of life.
Oh, I don’t know how to say it, but I’ll never think of you
Without wishing I were sharing in the work you have to do.
I have never known a moment that was fraught with real care,
Save the hurts and griefs of sorrow that all mortals have to bear;
With the gay and smiling marchers I have tramped on pleasant ways,
And have paid with feeble service for the gladness of my days.
But to you has come a summons, yours are days of sacrifice,
And for all life has of sweetness you must pay a bitter price.
Men have fought and died before me, men must fight and die to-day,
I have merely taken pleasures for which others had to pay;
I have been a man of laughter, there’s no path my feet have made,
I have merely been a marcher in life’s gaudy dress parade.
But you wear the garb of service, you have splendid deeds to do,
You shall sound the depths of manhood, and my boy, I envy you.
For Your Boy and Mine
Your dream and my dream is not that we shall rest,
But that our children after us shall know life at its best;
For all we care about ourselves—a crust of bread or two,
A place to sleep and clothes to wear is all that we’d pursue.
We’d tramp the world on sunny days, both light of heart and mind,
And give no thought to days to come or days we leave behind.
Your dream and my dream is not that we shall play,
But that our children after us shall tread a merry way.
We brave the toil of life for them, for them we clamber high,
And if ’twould spare them hurt and pain, for them we’d gladly die.
If we had but ourselves to serve, we’d quit the ways of pride
And with the simplest joys of earth we’d all be satisfied.
The best for them is what
we dream. Our little girls and boys
Must know the finest life
can give of comforts and of joys.
They must be shielded well
from woe and kept secure from care,
And if we could, upon our
backs, their burdens we would bear.
And so once more we rise to-day
to face the battle zone
That those who follow us may
know the Flag that we have known.
Your dream and my dream is not that we shall live;
The greatest joys we hope to claim are those that we shall give.
We face the heat and strife of life, its battle and its toil
That those who follow us may know the best of freedom’s soil.
And if we knew that by our death we’d keep that flag on high,
For your boy and my boy, how gladly we would die.
Soldierly
The glory of a soldier—and a soldier’s not a saint—
Is the way he does his duty without grumbling or complaint;
His work’s not always pleasant, but he does it rain or shine,
And he grabs a bit of glory when he’s fighting in the line;
But the lesson that he teaches every day to me an’ you
Is the way to do a duty that we do not like to do.
Any sort o’ chap can whistle when his work is mostly fun;
A hundred want the pleasant jobs to every sturdy one
That’ll grab the dreary duty an’ the mean an’ lowly task,
Or the drab an’ cheerless service that life often has to ask;
But somebody has to do it, an’ the test of me an’ you
Is the way we face the labor that we do not like to do.
Now, it isn’t very pleasant
standin’ guard out in the rain
But it’s in the line
o’ duty, an’ no soldier will complain,
An’ there isn’t
any soldier but what sometimes hates his work
When the dress parade is over,
an’ perhaps he’d like to shirk,
But he’s there to follow
orders, not to pick an’ choose his post,
An’ he sometimes shines
the finest at the job he hates the most.
Let’s be soldiers in the struggle, let’s be loyal through and through;
Life is going to give us duties that perhaps we’ll hate to do.
There’ll be little sacrifices that we will not like to make,
There’ll be many tasks unpleasant that will fall to us to take.
An’ although we all would rather do the work that brings applause,
Let’s forget our whims and fancies an’ just labor for the cause.
The Alarm
Get off your downy cots of ease,
There’s work that must be done.
Great danger’s riding on the seas.
The storm is coming on.
Don’t think that it will quickly pass.
Who smiles at distant fate,
And waits until it strikes, alas!
Has roused himself too late.
Who thinks the fight will
end before
The need of him
arrives,
Is lengthening this brutal
war
And costing many
lives.
For over us that storm shall
break
Ere many weeks
have fled,
And we shall pay for our mistake
In fields of mangled
dead.
Be ready when the foe shall
near,
Be there to strike
him hard;
Let us, though he be miles
from here,
Be standing now
on guard.
To-morrow’s victories
won’t be won
By pluck that
we display
To-morrow when the foe comes
on,
But by our work
to-day.
The Boy Enlists
His mother’s eyes are saddened,
and her cheeks
are stained with tears,
And I’m facing now the struggle that I’ve
dreaded through the years;
For the boy that was our baby has been changed
into a man.
He’s enlisted in the army as a true American.
He held her for a moment in his
arms before
he spoke,
And I watched him as he kissed her, and it
seemed to me I’d choke,
For I knew just what was coming, and I knew
just what he’d done!
’Another little mother had a soldier for
a son.
When we’d pulled ourselves
together, and the
first quick tears had dried,
We could see his eyes were blazing with the fire
of manly pride;
We could see his head was higher than it ever
was before,
For we had a man to cherish, and our baby was
no more.
Oh, I don’t know how to say
it! With the sorrow
comes the joy
That there isn’t any coward in the make-up
of
our boy.
And with pride our hearts are swelling, though
with grief they’re also hit,
For the boy that was our baby has stepped
forth to do his bit,
The Mother Faith
Little mother, life’s adventure calls your boy away,
Yet he will return to you on some brighter day;
Dry your tears and cease to sigh, keep your mother smile,
Brave and strong he will come back in a little while.
Little mother, heed them not—they who preach despair—
You shall have your boy again, brave and oh, so fair!
Life has need of him to-day, but with victory won,
Safely life shall bring to you once again your son.
Little mother, keep the faith:
not to death he goes;
Share with him the joy of
worth that your soldier knows.
He is giving to the Flag all
that man can give,
And if you believe he will,
surely he will live.
Little mother, through the night of his absence long,
Never cease to think of him—brave and well and strong;
You shall know his kiss again, you shall see his smile,
For your boy shall come to you in a little while.
Thoughts of a Soldier
Since men with life must purchase
life
And some must die that more may live,
Unto the Great Cashier of strife
A fine accounting let me give.
Perhaps to-morrow I shall stand
Before his cage, prepared to buy
New splendor for my native land:
Oh, God, then bravely let me die!
If after I shall fall, shall
rise
A fairer land
than I have known,
I shall not grudge my sacrifice,
Although I pay
the price alone.
If still more beautiful to
see
The Stars and
Stripes o’er men shall wave
And finer shall my country
be,
To-morrow let
me find my grave.
To-night life seems so fair
and sweet,
Yet tyranny is
stalking here,
And hate and lust and foul
deceit
Hang heavy on
the atmosphere.
Injustice seeks to throttle
right,
And laughter’s
stifled to a sigh.
If death can take so great
a blight
From human lives,
then let me die.
If death must be the cost
of life,
And freedom’s
terms are human souls,
Into the thickest of the strife
Then let me go
to pay the tolls.
I would enrich my native land,
New splendor to
her flag I’d give,
If where I fall shall freedom
stand,
And where I die
shall freedom live.
To-morrow death with me may
trade;
Let me not quibble
o’er the price;
But may I, once the bargain’s
made,
With courage meet
the sacrifice.
If happiness for ages long
My little term
of life can buy,
God, for my country make me
strong;
To-morrow let
me bravely die.
The Flag on the Farm
We’ve raised a flagpole on
the farm
And flung Old Glory to the sky,
And it’s another touch of charm
That seems to cheer the passer-by,
But more than that, no matter where
We’re laboring in wood and field,
We turn and see it in the air,
Our promise of a greater yield.
It whispers to us all day long
From dawn to dusk: “Be true, be strong;
Who falters now with plough or hoe
Gives comfort to his country’s foe.”
It seems to me I’ve
never tried
To do so much
about the place,
Nor been so slow to come inside,
But since I’ve
got the Flag to face,
Each night when I come home
to rest
I feel that I
must look up there
And say: “Old Flag,
I’ve done my best,
To-day I’ve
tried to do my share.”
And sometimes, just to catch
the breeze,
I stop my work, and o’er
the trees
Old Glory fairly shouts my
way:
“You’re shirking
far too much to-day!”
The help have caught the spirit,
too;
The hired man
takes off his cap
Before the old red, white
and blue,
Then to the horses
says: “Giddap!”
And starting bravely to the
field
He tells the milkmaid
by the door:
“We’re going to
make these acres yield
More than they’ve
ever done before.”
She smiles to hear his gallant
brag,
Then drops a curtsey to the
Flag,
And in her eyes there seems
to shine
A patriotism that is fine.
’We’ve raised
a flagpole on the farm
And flung Old
Glory to the sky,
We’re far removed from
war’s alarm,
But courage here
is running high.
We’re doing things we
never dreamed
We’d ever
find the time to do;
Deeds that impossible once
seemed
Each morning now
we hurry through.
The Flag now waves above our
toil
And sheds its glory on the
soil,
And boy and man look up to
it
As if to say: “I’ll
do my bit!”
The Mother on the Sidewalk
The mother on the sidewalk as the troops are marching by
Is the mother of Old Glory that is waving in the sky.
Men have fought to keep it splendid, men have died to keep it bright,
But that flag was born of woman and her sufferings day and night;
’Tis her sacrifice has made it, and once more we ought to pray
For the brave and loyal mother of the boy that goes away.
There are days of grief before her, there are hours that she will weep,
There are nights of anxious waiting when her fear will banish sleep;
She has heard her country calling and has risen to the test,
And has placed upon the altar of the nation’s need, her best.
And no man shall ever surfer in the turmoil of the fray
The anguish of the mother of the boy who goes away.
You may boast men’s deeds of glory, you may tell their courage great,
But to die is easier service than alone to sit and wait,
And I hail the little mother, with the tear-stained face and grave
Who has given the Flag a soldier—she’s the bravest of the brave.
And that banner we are proud of, with its red and blue and white
Is a lasting tribute holy to all mothers’ love of right.
The Big Deeds
We are done with little thinking and we’re done with little deeds,
We are done with petty conduct and we’re done with narrow creeds;
We have grown to men and women, and we’ve noble work to do,
And to-day we are a people with a larger point of view.
In a big way we must labor, if our Flag shall always fly.
In a big way some must suffer, in a big way some must die.
There must be no little dreaming in the visions that we see,
There must be no selfish planning in the joys that are to be;
’We have set our faces eastwards to the rising of the sun
That shall light a better nation, and there’s big work to be done.
And the petty souls and narrow, seeking only selfish gain,
Shall be vanquished by the toilers big enough to suffer pain.
It’s a big task we have taken; ’tis for others we must fight.
We must see our duty clearly in a white and shining light;
We must quit our little circles where we’ve moved in little ways,
And work, as men and women, for the bigger, better days.
We must quit our selfish thinking and our narrow views and creeds.
And as people, big and splendid, we must do the bigger deeds.
The Wrist Watch Man
He is marching dusty highways and he’s riding bitter trails,
His eyes are clear and shining and his muscles hard as nails.
He is wearing Yankee khaki and a healthy coat of tan,
And the chap that we are backing is the Wrist Watch Man.
He’s no parlor dude, a-prancing, he’s no puny pacifist,
And it’s not for affectation there’s a watch upon his wrist.
He’s a fine two-fisted scrapper, he is pure American,
And the backbone of the nation is the Wrist Watch Man.
He is marching with a rifle,
he is digging in a trench,
He is swapping English phrases
with a poilu for his French;
You will find him in the navy
doing anything he can,
For at every post of duty
is the Wrist Watch Man.
Oh, the time was that we chuckled
at the soft and flabby chap
Who wore a little wrist watch
that was fastened with a strap.
But the chuckles all have
vanished, and with glory now we scan
The courage and the splendor
of the Wrist Watch Man.
He is not the man we laughed at, not the one who won our jeers,
He’s the man that we are proud of, he’s the man that owns our cheers;
He’s the finest of the finest, he’s the bravest of the clan,
And I pray for God’s protection for our Wrist Watch Man.
Follow the Flag
Aye, we will follow the Flag
Wherever she goes,
Into the tropic sun,
Into the northern snows;
Go where the guns ring out
Scattering steel and lead,
Painting the hills with blood,
Strewing the fields with dead.
But in each heart must be,
And back of each bitter gun,
Love for the best in life
After the fighting’s done.
Aye, we will follow the Flag
Into benighted
lands,
Brave in the faith for which,
Proudly, our banner
stands.
Life for her life we’ll
pay,
Blood for her
blood we’ll give,
Fighting, but not to kill,
Save that the
best shall live.
But, when the cannon’s
roar
Dies in a hymn
of peace,
Justice and truth must reign,
Power of the brute
must cease.
Aye, we will follow the Flag,
Gladly her work
we’ll do,
Banishing wrongs of old,
Founding the truth
anew.
What though our guns must
speak,
What though brave
men must die,
Ages of truth to come
All this shall
justify.
Men in the charms of peace,
Basking in Freedom’s
sun,
Some day shall bless our Flag
After our work
is done.
Aye, we will follow the Flag
Wherever she goes,
Into the tropic sun,
Into the northern
snows.
Fearlessly, on we’ll
go
Into the cruel
strife,
Gladly the few shall die,
Winning for many,
life.
Tyranny’s wrongs must
cease,
Brutes must no
longer brag,
This is our work on earth,
So we will follow
the Flag.
We’ve Had a Letter From the Boy
We’ve had a letter from the boy,
And oh, the gladness and the joy
It brought to us! We read it o’er
I’d say a dozen times or more.
We laughed until the teardrops fell
At all the fun he had to tell.
He’s in the navy, wearing blue,
And everything is all so new
That he can see in youthful style
The funny things to make us smile.
He’s working hard!
Between the lines
We gather that. The brass
he shines
Without complaining, and the
food
He gets to eat is very crude.
And yet he laughs at all his
chores.
He says the maid who scrubs
our floors
Will have to quit when he
returns
Unless a better way she learns.
“I’ve got it on
the fairer sex,”
Says he, “since I am
swabbing decks.”
“A sailor’s life,
dear Mom,” writes he,
“Is not the life you
picked for me.
And yet I’m getting
fat and strong
And learning as I go along
That any life a man can find
Is apt to grow to be a grind
Unless a fellow has the wit
To see the brighter side of
it.
Don’t worry for your
sailor son;
He sleeps well when his work
is done.”
We’ve had a letter from
the boy,
And oh, the gladness and the
joy
It brought to us! ’Twas
good to know
That he is facing duty so.
Between the lines that he
had penned
His mother’s bitter
fears to end,
I saw his manhood glowing
bright,
And now I know his heart is
right.
Behind the laughter I could
see
My boy’s the man I’d
hoped he’d be.
Exempt
They have said you needn’t
go to the front to face the foe;
They have left you with jour women and your
children safe at home;
They have spared you from the crash of the murderous
guns that flash
And the horrors and the madness and the death
across the foam.
But it’s your fight, just the same, and
your country still must claim
The splendor of your manhood and the best that
you can do;
In a thousand different ways through the dark
and troubled days,
You must stand behind the nation that has been
so good to you.
You’re exempt from shot
and shell, from the havoc and the hell
That have robbed
the world of gladness; you have missed the sterner
fate
Of the brave young men and
fine, that are falling into line,
You may stay among
your children who are swinging on the gate.
But you’re not exempt
from love of the Flag that flies above,
You’ve a
greater obligation to your country to be true;
You must work from day to
day in a bigger, better way
For the glory
of the nation that has been so good to you.
You are not exempt from trial,
from long days of self-denial,
From devotion
to your homeland and from courage in the test.
You are not exempt from giving
to your country’s needs and living
As a citizen and
soldier—an example of the best.
You’ve a harder task
before you than the boys who’re fighting for
you,
You must match
their splendid courage and devotion through and through;
You must prove by fine endeavor,
and by standing constant ever
That you’re
worthy of the country that has been so good to you.
Duty
We know not where the path may lead nor what the end may be,
The clouds are dark above us now, the future none can see,
And yet when all the storms have passed, and cannons cease to roar,
We shall be prouder of our flag than we have been before.
We could not longer idle stay, spectators of a wrong,
The weak were crying out for help against oppression strong;
And though we pray we may be spared the bitterness of strife,
’Twere better that we die than live the coward’s feeble life.
We could not longer silent
sit, our glory at an end,
And blind ourselves unto the
wrongs committed by a friend;
We must be tolerant with all,
yet in these days of hate,
Some things have happened
that it would be shame to tolerate.
And now we stand before the
world, erect and calm and grave,
And speak the words that decency
must rule the land and wave;
Into the chaos of despair
we fling ourselves to-day
As guardians of a precious
trust hate must not sweep away.
We must rejoice, if we are men, not weak and soft of heart
That we have heeded duty’s call, and taken up our part.
And when at last sweet peace shall come, and all the strife is o’er,
We shall be prouder of our flag than we have been before,
A Prayer
God grant to us the strength of
men,
The patience of the brave;
The wisdom to be silent, when
The days with doubt are grave.
When dangers come, as come they must,
Throughout the trying hours
Let us continue still to trust
That triumph shall be ours.
We have foresworn our days
of ease
To battle for
the right,
To venture over troubled seas
Oppression’s
wrongs to fight.
And we have pledged ourselves
to grief,
And bitter hurt
and pain,
Then must we cling to this
belief:
We suffer not
in vain.
God grant to us the strength
of men,
God help us to
be true
Until that glorious morning
when
The world shall
smile anew.
We shall be tested sore and
tried,
And flayed by
many fears,
Yet let us in this faith abide,
That right shall
rule the years.
Sympathy
One came to the house with a pretty
speech:
“It’s all for the best,” said
he,
And I know that he sought my heart to reach,
And I know that he grieved with me.
But I was too full of my sorrow
then
To list to his words or care;
Though I’ve tried I cannot recall again
The comfort he gave me there.
But another came, and his
lips were dumb
As he grasped
me by the hand,
And he stammered: “Old
man, I had to come,
Oh, I hope you’ll
understand.”
And ever since then I have felt
his hand
Clasped tightly in my own,
And to-day his silence I understand—
My sorrowing he had known.
Hate
They say we must not hate, nor
fight in hate.
I’ve thought it over many a solemn hour,
And cannot mildly view the man or state
That has no thought, save only to be great;
I cannot love the creature drunk with power.
I hate the hand that slaughters babes at sea,
I hate that will that orders wives to die.
And there is something rises up in me
When brutes run wild in crime and lechery
That soft adjustments will not satisfy.
Men seldom fight the things
they do not hate;
A vice grows strong
on mildly tempered scorn;
Rank thrives the weed the
gardeners tolerate;
You cannot stroke the snake
that lies in wait,
And change his
nature with to-morrow’s morn.
If roses are to bloom, the
weeds must go;
Vice be dethroned
if virtue is to reign;
Honor and shame together cannot
grow,
Sin either conquers or we
lay it low,
Wrong must be
hated if the truth remain.
I hold that we must fight
this war in hate—
In bitter hate
of blood in fury spilled;
Of children, bending over
book and slate,
Slaughtered to make a Prussian
despot great;
In hate of mothers
pitilessly killed.
In hate of liars plotting
General Pershing
He isn’t long on speeches. At the banquet table, he
Could name a dozen places where he would much rather be.
He’s not one for fuss and feathers or for marching in review,
But he’s busy every minute when he’s got a job to do.
And you’ll find him in the open, fighting hard and fighting square
For the glory of his country when his boys get over there.
He has listened to the cheering of the splendid folks of France,
And he knows that he’s the leader of America’s advance,
And he knows his task is mighty and that words will not avail,
So he’s standing to his duty, for he isn’t there to fail.
And you’ll find him cool and steady when the guns begin to flare,
And he’ll talk in deeds of glory when his boys get over there.
He has gone to face the fury of the Prussian hordes that sweep
O’er the fertile fields of Freedom, where the forms of heroes sleep,
And it seems no time for talking or for laughter or for cheers,
With the wounded all about him and their moaning in his ears.
He is waiting for to-morrow, waiting there to do his share,
And he’ll strike a blow for freedom when his boys get over there.
The Better Thing
It is better to die for the flag,
For its red and its white and its blue,
Than to hang back and shirk and to lag
And let the flag sink out of view.
It is better to give up this life
In the heat and the thick of the strife
Than to live out your days ’neath a sky,
Where Old Glory shall never more fly.
The peace that we long for
will be
Far worse than
the war that we dread
If never again we’re
to see
The blue, and
the white and the red
Wind-tossed and sun-kissed
in the skies.
If ever the Stars and Stripes
dies
Or loses its lustre and pride,
We shall wish in our souls
we had died.
It is better by far that we
die
Than that flag
shall pass out of the world;
If ever it ceases to fly,
If ever it’s
hauled down and furled,
Dishonor shall stamp us with
shame
And freedom be naught but
a name,
And the few years of dearly-bought
breath
Will be filled with worse
horrors than death.
To a Lady Knitting
Little woman, hourly sitting,
Something for a soldier knitting,
What in fancy can you see?
Many pictures come to me
Through the stitch that now you’re making:
I behold a bullet breaking;
I can see some soldier lying
In that garment slowly dying,
And that very bit of thread
In your fingers, turns to red.
Gray to-day; perhaps to-morrow
Crimsoned by the blood of sorrow.
It may be some hero daring
Shall that very thing be wearing
When he ventures forth to
give
Life that other men may live.
He may braver wield the saber
As a tribute to your labor,
And for that, which you have
knitted,
Better for his task be fitted.
When the thread has left your
finger,
Something of yourself may
linger,
Something of your lovely beauty
May sustain him in his duty.
Some one’s boy that
was a baby
Soon shall wear it, and it
may be
He will write and tell his
mother
Of the kindness of another,
And her spirit shall caress
you,
And her prayers at night shall
bless you.
You may never know its story,
Cannot know the grief or glory
That are destined now and
hover
Over him your wool shall cover,
Nor what spirit shall invade
it
Once your gentle hands have
made it.
Little woman, hourly sitting,
Something for a soldier knitting,
’Tis no common garb
you’re making,
These, no common pains you’re
taking.
Something lovely, holy, lingers
O’er the needles in
your fingers
And with every stitch you’re
weaving
Something of yourself you’re
leaving.
From your gentle hands and
tender
There may come a nation’s
splendor,
And from this, your simple
duty,
Life may win a fairer beauty.
A Good Soldier
He writes to us most every day, and how his letters thrill us!
I can’t describe the joys with which his quaint expressions fill us.
He says the military life is not of his selection,
He’s only soldiering to-day to give the Flag protection.
But since he’s in the army now and doing duties humble,
He’ll do what all good soldiers must, and he will never grumble.
He’s not so keen for standing guard, a lonely vigil keeping,
“But when I must,” he writes to us, “they’ll never find me sleeping!
I hear a lot of boys complain about the tasks they set us
And there’s no doubt that mother’s meals can beat the ones they get us,
But since I’m here to do my bit, close to the job I’m sticking;
I’ll take whatever comes my way and waste no word in kicking.
“I’d like to be
a captain, dad, a major or a colonel,
I’d like to get my picture
in some illustrated journal;
I don’t exactly fancy
jobs that now and then come my way,
Like picking bits of rubbish
up that desecrate the highway.
But still I’ll do those
menial tasks as cheerfully as could one,
For while I am a private here
I’m going to be a good one.
“A soldier’s life is not the way I’d choose to make my living,
But now I’m in the ranks to serve, my best to it I’m giving.
Oh, I could name a dozen jobs that I’d consider finer,
But since I’ve got this one to do I’ll never be a whiner.
I’m just a private in the ranks, but take it from my letter,
They’ll never fire your son for one who’ll do his duty better.”
His Santa Claus
He will not come to him this year with all his old-time joy,
An imitation Santa Claus must serve his little boy;
Last year he heard the reindeers paw the roof above his head,
And as he dreamed the kindly saint tip-toed about his bed,
But Christmas Eve he will not come by any happy chance;
This year his kindly Santa Claus must guard a trench in France.
His mother bravely tries to smile; last Christmas Eve was gay;
Last Christmas morn his daddy rose at dawn with him to play;
This year he’ll hang his stocking by the chimney, but the hands
That filled it with the joys he craved now serve in foreign lands.
He is too young to understand his mother’s troubled glance,
But he that was his Santa Claus is in a trench in France.
Somewhere in France this Christmas Eve a soldier brave will be,
And all that night in fancy he will trim a Christmas tree;
And all that night he’ll live again the joys that once he had
When he was good St. Nicholas unto a certain lad.
And he will wonder if his boy, by any sad mischance,
Will find his stocking empty just because he serves in France.
Show the Flag
Show the flag and let it wave
As a symbol of the brave;
Let it float upon the breeze
As a sign for each who sees
That beneath it, where it rides,
Loyalty to-day abides.
Show the flag and signify
That it wasn’t born to die;
Let its colors speak for you
That you still are standing true,
True in sight of God and man
To the work that flag began.
Show the flag that all may
see
That you serve humanity.
Let it whisper to the breeze
That comes singing through
the trees
That whatever storms descend
You’ll be faithful to
the end.
Show the flag and let it fly, Cheering every passer-by—Men that may have stepped aside, May have lost their old-time pride, May behold it there, and then Consecrate themselves again.
Show the flag! The day is gone
When men blindly hurry on
Serving only gods of gold;
Now the spirit that was cold
Warms again to courage fine.
Show the flag and fall in line!
The Honor Roll
The boys upon the honor roll, God bless them all, I pray!
God watch them when they sleep at night, and guard them through the day.
We’ve stamped their names upon our walls, the list in glory grows,
Our brave boys and our splendid boys who stand to meet our foes.
Oh, here are sons of mothers fair and fathers fine and true,
The little ones of yesterday, the children that we knew;
We thought of them as youngsters gay, still laughing at their games,
And then we found the honor roll emblazoned with their names.
We missed their laughter and
their cheer; it seems but yesterday
We had them here to walk with
us, and now they’ve marched away.
And here where once their
smiles were seen we keep a printed scroll;
The absent boy we long to
see is on the honor roll.
So quickly did the summons
come we scarcely marked the change,
One day life marched its normal
pace, the next all things seemed strange,
And when we questioned where
they were, the sturdiest of us all,
We saw the silent honor roll
on each familiar wall.
The laughter that we knew has gone; the merry voice of youth
No longer rings where graybeards sit, discussing sombre truth.
No longer jests are flung about to rouse our weary souls,
For they who meant so much to us are on our honor rolls.
The Princess Pats
A touch of the plain and the prairie,
A bit of the Motherland, too;
A strain of the fur-trapper wary,
A blend of the old and the new;
A bit of the pioneer splendor
That opened the wilderness’ flats,
A touch of the home-lover, tender,
You’ll find in the boys they call Pats.
The glory and grace of the
maple,
The strength that
is born of the wheat,
The pride of a stock that
is staple,
The bronze of
a midsummer heat;
A blending of wisdom and daring,
The best of a
new land, and that’s
The regiment gallantly bearing
The neat little
title of Pats.
A bit of the man who has neighbored
With mountains
and forests and streams,
A touch of the man who has
labored
To model and fashion
his dreams;
The strength of an age of
clean living,
Of right-minded
fatherly chats,
The best that a land could
be giving
Is there in the
breasts of the Pats.
July the Fourth, 1917
Time was the cry went round the
world:
America for freedom speaks,
A new flag is to-day unfurled,
An eagle on the mountain shrieks,
A king is failing on his throne,
A race of men defies his power!
And no one could have guessed or known
The burden of that splendid hour.
A bell rang out that summer
day
And men and women
stood and heard;
That tongue of brass had more
to say
Than could be
spoken by a word.
It spoke the thoughts of honest
men,
It whispered Destiny’s
intents
And rang a warning loudly
then
To Kings of all
the continents.
The old bell in its holy loft
Where pigeons
nest, has ceased to swing
And yet through many a day
and oft
A weary people
hear it sing.
That hour long years ago,
when first
America for freedom
fought,
The bonds of slavery were
burst:
That hour began
the reign of thought.
Here comes another summer
day:
America is on
the sea,
America has dared to say
That other people
shall be free.
No selfish stain her banner
mars,
Her flag, for
truth and right, unfurled,
With every stripe and all
its stars
Still speaks its
message to the world
Out where the soldiers fight
for men,
Out where, for
others, heroes die,
Out where they storm the Tyrant’s
den,
The Starry Banner
lights the sky.
And once again the cry goes
out
That brings the
flush of hope to cheeks
Grown pale by bitter war and
doubt:
“America
for Freedom speaks.”
Spring in the Trenches
It’s coming time for planting in that little patch of ground,
Where the lad and I made merry as he followed me around;
The sun is getting higher, and the skies above are blue,
And I’m hungry for the garden, and I wish the war were through.
But it’s tramp, tramp,
tramp,
And it’s never look behind,
And when you see a stranger’s kids,
Pretend that you are blind.
The spring is coming back again, the birds begin to mate;
The skies are full of kindness, but the world is full of hate.
And it’s I that should be bending now in peace above the soil,
With laughing eyes and little hands about to bless the toil.
But it’s fight, fight,
fight,
And it’s charge at double-quick;
A soldier thinking thoughts of home
Is one more soldier sick.
Last year I brought the bulbs to bloom and saw the roses bud;
This year I’m ankle deep in mire, and most of it is blood.
Last year the mother in the door was glad as she could be;
To-day her heart is full of pain, and mine is hurting me.
But it’s shoot, shoot,
shoot,
And when the bullets hiss,
Don’t let the tears fill up your eyes,
For weeping soldiers miss.
Oh, who will tend the roses now and who will sow the seeds?
And who will do the heavy work the little garden needs?
And who will tell the lad of mine the things he wants to know,
And take his hand and lead him round the paths we used to go?
For it’s charge, charge,
charge,
And it’s face the foe once more;
Forget the things you love the most
And keep your mind on war.
Bigger Than His Dad
He has heard his country calling,
and has fallen into line,
And he’s doing something bigger than his
daddy ever did;
He has caught a greater vision than the finest
one of mine,
And I know to-day I’m prouder of than
sorry for the kid.
His speech is soft and vibrant
with the messages of truth,
And he says some things of duty that I cannot
understand;
It may be that I’m selfish, but this ending
of his youth
Is not the dream I cherished and it’s
not the thing I planned.
I only know he’s bigger
in his uniform to-day
Than I, who stand
and watch him as he drills, have ever been;
That he sees a greater vision
of life’s purpose far away,
And a finer goal
to die for than my eyes have ever seen.
I wish I felt as he does, wish
I had his sense of right;
With the vision he possesses I should be supremely
glad;
But I sometimes start to choking when I think
of him at night—
The boy that has grown bigger, yes, and better
than his dad.
The Boy’s Adventure
“Dear Father,” he wrote me from Somewhere in France,
Where he’s waiting with Pershing to lead the advance,
“There’s little the censor permits me to tell
Save the fact that I’m here and am happy and well.
The French people cheered as we marched from our ship
At the close of a really remarkable trip;
They danced and they screamed and they shouted and ran,
And I blush as I write. I was kissed by a man!
“I’ve seen a great
deal since I bade you good-bye,
I have witnessed a battle
far up in the sky;
I have heard the dull roar
of a long line of guns,
And seen the destruction that’s
worked by the Huns;
Some scenes I’ll remember,
and some I’ll forget,
But the welcome he gave me!
I’m feeling it yet.
Oh, try to imagine your boy
if you can,
As he looked and he felt,
being kissed by a man!
“‘Ah, Meestaire!’
he cried in a voice that was shrill,
And his queer little eyes
with delight seemed to fill,
And before I was wise to the
custom, or knew
Just what he was up to, about
me he threw
His arms, and he hugged me,
and then with a squeak,
He planted a chaste little
kiss on each cheek.
He was stocky and strong and
his whiskers were tan.
Now please keep it dark.
I’ve been kissed by a man.”
Out of It All
Out of it all shall come splendor and gladness;
Out of the madness and out of the sadness,
Clearer and finer the world shall arise.
Why then keep sorrow and doubt in your eyes?
Joy shall be ours when the warfare is over;
Children shall gleefully romp in the clover;
Here with our heroes at home and at rest,
We shall rejoice with the world at its best.
Not in vain, not in vain,
is our bright banner flying;
Not for naught are the sons
of our fond mothers dying;
The gloom and despair are
not ever to last;
The world shall be better
when they shall have passed.
So mourn not his absence, but smile and be brave;
You shall have him again from the brink of the grave
In a wonderful world ’neath a wonderful sun;
He shall come to your arms with his victory won.
The Christmas Box
Oh, we have shipped his Christmas box with ribbons red ’tis tied,
And he shall find the things he likes from them he loves inside,
But he must miss the kisses true and all the laughter gay
And he must miss the smiles of home upon his Christmas Day.
He’ll spend his Christmas ’neath the Flag; he’ll miss each merry face,
Old Glory smiling down on him must take his mother’s place,
Yet in the Christmas box we’ve sent, in fancy he will find
The laughter and the tears of joy that he has left behind.
His mother’s tenderness
is there, his father’s kindly way,
And all that went last year
to make his merry Christmas Day;
He’ll see once more
his sister’s smile, he’ll hear the baby
shout,
And as he opens every gift
we’ll gather round about.
He cannot come to share with us the joys of Christmas Day;
The Flag has called to him, and he is serving far away.
Undaunted, unafraid and fine he stands to duty grim,
And so this Christmas we have tried to ship ourselves to him.
A Plea
God grant me these: the strength
to do
Some needed service here;
The wisdom to be brave and true;
The gift of vision clear,
That in each task that comes to me
Some purpose I may plainly see.
God teach me to believe that I
Am stationed at a post,
Although the humblest ’neath the sky,
Where I am needed most,
And that, at last, if I do well,
My humble services will tell.
God grant me faith to stand on
guard,
Uncheered, unspoke, alone,
And see behind such duty hard
My service to the throne.
Whate’er my task, be this my creed:
I am on earth to fill a need.
Your Country Needs You
The country needs a man like you,
It has a task for you to do.
It has a job for you to face.
Somewhere for you it has a place.
Not all the slackers dodge the work
Of service where the cannon lurk,
Not all the slackers on life’s stage
Are boys of military age.
The old, the youthful and unfit
Must also do their little bit.
The country needs a man like
you,
’Twill suffer if you
prove untrue.
What though you cannot bear
a gun?
That isn’t all that’s
to be done.
There are a thousand other
ways
To serve your country through
the days
Of trial and the nights of
storm.
You need not wear a uniform
Or with the men in council
sit
To serve the Flag and do your
bit.
Somewhere for you there is
a place,
Somewhere you have a task
to face.
There’s none so helpless
or so frail
That cannot, when our foes
assail,
In some way help our common
cause
And be deserving of applause.
Behind the Flag we all must
be,
Each at his post, awake to
see
That in so far as he has striven,
His best was to his country
given.
You can be patient, brave
and strong,
And not complain when plans
go wrong;
You can be cheerful at your
toil,
Or till, perhaps, some patch
of soil;
You can encourage others who
Have heavier, greater tasks
to do;
You can be loyal, not in creed
Alone, but in each thought
and deed;
You can make sacrifices, too.
The country needs a man like
you,
A Creed
To keep in mind from day to day
That I’m a soldier in the fray;
That I must serve, from sun to sun,
As well as he who bears a gun
The flag that flies above us all,
And answer well my Country’s call.
I must not for one hour forget
Unto the Stars and Stripes my debt.
‘Twas spotless on’ my day of birth,
And when at last I quit this earth
Old Glory still must spotless be
For all who follow after me.
At some post where my work
will fit
I must with courage do my
bit;
Some portion of myself I’d
give
That freedom and the Flag
may live.
And in some way I want to
feel
That I am doing service real.
I must in all I say and do
Respect the red, the white and blue’,
Nor dim with petty deeds of shame
The splendor of Old Glory’s fame;
I must not let my standards drag,
For my disgrace would stain the Flag.
The Struggle
Life is a struggle for peace,
A longing for rest,
A hope for the battles to cease,
A dream for the best;
And he is not living who stays
Contented with things,
Unconcerned with the work of the days
And all that it brings.
He is dead who sees nothing
to change,
No wrong to make
right;
Who travels no new way or
strange
In search of the
light;
Who never sets out for a goal
That he sees from
afar
But contents his indifferent
soul
With things as
they are.
Life isn’t rest—it
is toil;
It is building
a dream;
It is tilling a parcel of
soil
Or bridging a
stream;
It’s pursuing the light
of a star
That but dimly
we see,
And in wresting from things
as they are
The joy that should
be.
As It Looks to the Boy
His comrades have enlisted, but his mother bids him stay,
His soul is sick with coward shame, his head hangs low to-day,
His eyes no longer sparkle, and his breast is void of pride
And I think that she has lost him though she’s kept him at her side.
Oh, I’m sorry for the mother, but I’m sorrier for the lad
Who must look on life forever as a hopeless dream and sad.
He must fancy men are sneering as they see him walk the street,
He will feel his cheeks turn crimson as his eyes another’s meet;
And the boys and girls that knew him as he was but yesterday,
Will not seem to smile upon him, in the old familiar way.
He will never blame his mother, but when he’s alone at night,
His thoughts will flock to tell him that he isn’t doing right.
Oh, I’m sorry for the
mother from whose side a boy must go,
And the strong desire to keep
him that she feels, I think I know,
But the boy that she’s
so fond of has a life to live on earth,
And he hungers to be busy
with the work that is of worth.
He will sicken and grow timid,
he’ll be flesh without a heart
Until death at last shall
claim him, if he doesn’t do his part.
Have you kept him, gentle mother? Has he lost his old-time cheer?
Is he silent, sad and sullen? Are his eyes no longer clear?
Is he growing weak and flabby who but yesterday was strong?
Then a secret grief he’s nursing and I’ll tell you what is wrong.
All his comrades have departed on their country’s noblest work,
And he hungers to be with them—it is not his wish to shirk.
Fly a Clean Flag
This I heard the Old Flag say
As I passed it yesterday:
“Months ago your friendly hands
Fastened me on slender strands
And with patriotic love
Placed me here to wave above
You and yours. I heard you say
On that long departed day:
’Flag of all that’s true and fine,
Wave above this house of mine;
Be the first at break of day
And the last at night to say
To the world this word of cheer:
Loyalty abideth here.’
“Here on every wind
that’s blown,
O’er your” portal
I have flown;
Rain and snow have battered
me,
Storms at night have tattered
me;
Dust of street and chimney
stack
Day by day have stained me
black,
And I’ve watched you
passing there,
Wondering how much you care.
Have you noticed that your
flag,
Is to-day a wind-blown rag?
Has your love so careless
grown
By the long neglect you’ve
shown
That you never raise your
eye
To the symbol that you fly?”
“Flag, on which no stain
has been,
’Tis my sin that you’re
unclean,”
Then I answered in my shame.
“On my head must lie
the blame.
Now with patriotic hands
I release you from your strands,
And a spotless flag shall
fly
Here to greet each passer-by.
Nevermore shall Flag of mine
Be a sad and sorry sign
Telling all who look above
I neglect the thing I love.
But my Flag of faith shall
be
Fit for every eye to see.”
To a Kindly Critic
If it’s wrong to believe in the land that we love
And to pray for Our Flag to the good God above;
If it’s wrong to believe that Our Country is best;
That honor’s her standard, and truth is her crest;
If placing her first in our prayers and our song
Is false to true reason, we’re glad to be wrong.
If it’s wrong to wish victory day after day
For the troops of Our Country now marching away;
If it’s wrong to believe they are moved by the right
And not by the love and the lure of the fight;
If to cheer them to battle and bid them be strong
Is false to right thinking, then let us be wrong.
If it’s wrong to believe in America’s dreams
Of a freedom on earth that’s as real as it seems;
If it’s error to cherish the hope, through and through,
That the Stars in Old Glory’s immaculate blue
Shall shine through the ages, true beacons to men,
We pray that no right phrase shall flow from our pen.
War’s Homecoming
We little thought how much they meant—the bleeding hearts of France,
And British mothers wearing black to mark some troop’s advance,
The war was, O, so distant then, the grief so far away,
We couldn’t see the weeping eyes, nor hear the women pray.
We couldn’t sense the weight of woe that rested on that land,
But now our boy is called to go—to-day, we understand.
There, some have heard the blackest news that o’er the wires has sped,
And some are living day by day beneath the clouds of dread;
Some fear the worst; some know the worst, but every heart is chilled,
And every soul is sorrow touched and laughter there is stilled.
There, old folks sit alone and grieve and pray for peace to come,
And now our little boy has heard the summons of the drum.
Their grief was such a distant thing, we made it fruit for speech.
We never thought in days of old such pain our hearts would reach.
We talked of it, as people do of sorrow far aloof,
Nor dreamed such care would ever dwell beneath our happy roof.
But England’s woes are ours to-day, we share the sighs of France;
Our little boy is on the sea with Death to take his chance.
Next of Kin
I notice when the news comes in
Of one who’s claimed eternal glory,
This simple phrase, “the next of kin,”
Concludes the soldier’s final story.
This tells the world what voice will choke,
What heart that bit of shrapnel broke,
What father or what mother brave
Will think of Flanders as a grave.
“The next of kin,”
the cable cold
Wastes not a precious
word in telling,
Yet cannot you and I behold
The sorrow in
some humble dwelling,
And cannot you and I perceive
The brave yet lonely mother
grieve
And picture, when that news
comes in,
The anguish of “the
next of kin?”
For every boy in uniform,
Another soldier
brave is fighting;
A double rank the cannons
storm,
Two lines the
cables are uniting,
And with the hurt each soldier
feels,
At home the other warrior
reels;
Two suffer, freedom’s
cause to win:
The soldier and “the
next of kin.”
Oh, next of kin, be brave,
be strong,
As brave as was
the boy that’s missing;
The years will many be and
long
That you will
hunger for his kissing.
Yet he enlisted you with him
To share war’s bitter
price and grim;
Your service runs through
many years
Because your name with his
appears.
See It Through
There are many to cheer when the
battle begins
There are many to shout for the right;
There are many to rail at the world and its sins
But few have the grit for the fight.
There are thousands to start with a rush for the
fray
When the fighting seems easy to do,
But when danger is present and rough is the way,
The few have to see the job through.
It is easy to quit with a
battle unwon,
It is hard to
press on to success;
It is easy to stop with a
purpose undone,
It is hard to
encounter distress.
And many will march when the
roadway is clear
And the glorious
goal is in view,
But the many, too often, when
dangers appear,
Aren’t willing
to see the fight through.
They weaken in spirit when
trials grow great,
They flinch at
the clashing of steel;
They talk of the strength
of the foe at the gate
And whine at the
hurts that they feel.
They begin to regret having
ventured for right,
They sigh that
they dared to be true,
They haven’t the heart
they once had for the fight,
They don’t
want to see the job through.
We have set out to battle
for justice and truth,
We have fearful
disasters to meet;
We shall weep for the best
of our manliest youth,
We shall suffer
the pangs of defeat.
But let us stand firm for
the cause that we plead,
Let the many be
brave with the few;
The cry of the quitter let
none of us heed
Till we’ve
done what we started to do.
Hope
Mine is a song of hope
For the days that lie before;
For the grander things
The morrow brings
When the struggle days are o’er.
Dark be the clouds to-day,
Bitter the winds that blow,
But falter nor fail,
Through the howling gale—
Comes peace in the afterglow.
Mine is the song of hope,
A song for the mother here,
Who lulls to rest
The babe at breast,
And hopes for a brighter year.
Hope is the song she sings,
Hope is the prayer she prays;
As she rocks her boy,
She dreams of the joy
He’ll bring in the future days.
Mine is the song of hope,
A song for the father, too,
Whose right arm swings,
While his anvil sings
A song of the journey through.
Hope is the star that guides,
Hope is the father’s sun;
Far ahead he sees,
Through the waving trees,
Sweet peace when his work is done.
Mine is the song of hope,
Of hope that sustains us all;
Be we young or old,
Be we weak or bold,
Do we falter or even fall,
Brightly the star of hope
From the distance is shining still;
And with courage new
We rise to do,
For hope is the God of Will.
The Gold Givers
Oh, some shall stand in glory’s light when all the strife is done,
And many a mother there shall say, “For truth I gave my son!”
But I shall stand in silence then and hear the stories brave,
For I must answer at the last that gold is all I gave.
When all this age shall pass away, and silenced are the guns,
When sweethearts join their loves again, and mothers kiss their sons,
When brave unto the brave return, and all they did is told,
How pitiful my gift shall seem, when all I gave is gold.
When we are asked what did you then, when all the world was red,
And some shall say, “I fell in France,” and some, “I mourned my dead;”
With all the brave assembled there in glory long to live,
How trivial our lives shall seem who had but gold to give.
The Undaunted
He tried to travel No Man’s Land, that’s guarded well with guns,
He tried to race the road of death, where never a coward runs.
Now he’s asking of his doctor, and he’s panting hard for breath,
How soon he will be ready for another bout with death.
You’d think if you had wakened in a shell hole’s slime and mud
That was partly dirty water, but was mostly human blood,
And you had to lie and suffer till the bullets ceased to hum
And the night time dropped its cover, so the stretcher boys could come—
You’d think if you had
suffered from a fever and its thirst,
And could hear the “rapids”
spitting and the high explosives burst,
And had lived to tell that
story—you could face our fellow men
In the little peaceful village,
though you never fought again.
You’d think that once
you’d fallen in the shrapnel’s deadly rain,
Once you’d shed your
blood for honor, you had borne your share of pain;
Once you’d traveled
No Man’s country, you’d be satisfied to
quit
And be invalided homeward,
and could say you’d done your bit.
But he’s lying, patched and bandaged, very white and very weak,
And he’s trying to be cheerful, though it’s agony to speak;
He is pleading with the doctor, though he’s panting hard for breath,
To return him to the trenches for another bout with death.
The Discovery of a Soul
The proof of a man is the
danger test,
That shows him up at his worst or best.
He didn’t seem to care for work, he wasn’t much at school.
His speech was slow and commonplace—you wouldn’t call him fool.
And yet until the war broke out you’d calmly pass him by,
For nothing in his make-up or his way would catch your eye.
He seemed indifferent to the world, the kind that doesn’t care—
That’s satisfied with just enough to eat and drink and wear;
That doesn’t laugh when others do or cry when others weep,
But seems to walk the wakeful world half dormant and asleep;
Then came the war, and soldiers marched and drums began to roll,
And suddenly we realized his body held a soul.
We little dreamed how much
he loved his Country and her Flag;
About the glorious Stars and
Stripes we’d never heard him brag.
But he was first to volunteer,
while brilliant men demurred,
He took the oath of loyalty
without a faltering word,
And then we found that he
could talk, for one remembered night,
There came a preaching pacifist
denouncing men who fight,
And he got up in uniform and
looked at him and said:
“I wonder if you ever
think about our soldiers dead.
All that you are to-day you
owe some soldier in his grave;
If he had been afraid to fight,
you still would be a slave.”
If he had died a year ago
beneath a peaceful sky,
Unjust our memory would have
been; of him our tongues would lie.
We should have missed his
splendid worth, we should have called him frail
And listed him among the weak
and sorry men who fail.
But few regrets had marked
his end; he would have passed unmourned—
Perhaps by those who knew
him best, indifferently scorned.
But now he stands among us
all, eyes bright and shoulders true,
A strong defender of the faith;
a man with work to do;
And if he dies, his name shall
find its place on history’s scroll;
The great chance has revealed
to men the splendor of his soul.
Here We Are!
Here we are, Britain! the finest and best of us
Taking our coats off and rolling our sleeves,
Answering the thoughtless that once made a jest of us,
Each man a soldier for what he believes.
Here we are, tight little island, in unity!
Tell us the job that you want us to do!
You can depend on us all with impunity.
Give us a task and we’ll all see it through.
Here we are, France! every
Yankee born man of us
Coming to stand by your side
in the fight;
Liberty’s cause makes
a whole-hearted clan of us.
Here we are, willing to die
for the right.
Silently, long from our shores
we’ve admired you,
Secretly proud of the pluck
you’ve displayed.
Brothers we are of the love
that inspired you;
Now we are coming, full front,
to your aid.
Here we are, Allies! make
room in your trenches!
Shoulder to shoulder we’ll
share in each drive.
Here we are! quitting our
lathes and our benches,
Bringing our best that our
best shall survive.
Here we are! Liberty’s
children, red-blooded,
Coming to share in the struggle
with you,
Ready to die for the Flag
that’s star-studded;
Tell us the work that you
want us to do.
What is it, fighting or building
you’re needing?
Boring a mountain or bridging
a stream,
Steel work and real work?
Your call we are heeding.
Each of us here is a man with
a dream.
Here we are! tacklers of tough
jobs and dangers,
Any old post where you put
us we’ll fit;
Coming to serve you as brothers,
not strangers;
Here we are, Allies! to offer
our bit!
We Who Stay at Home
When you were just our little boy, on many a night we crept
Unto your cot and watched o’er you, and all the time you slept.
We tucked the covers round your form and smoothed your pillow, too,
And sometimes stooped and kissed your cheeks, but that you never knew.
Just as we came to you back then through many a night and day,
Our spirits now shall come to you—to kiss and watch and pray.
Whenever you shall look away into God’s patch of sky
To think about the folks at home, we shall be standing by.
And as we prayed and watched o’er you when you were wrapped in sleep,
So through your soldier danger now the old-time watch we’ll keep.
You will not know that we are there, you will not see or hear,
But all the time in prayer and thought we shall be very near.
The world has made of you
a man; the work of man you do,
But unto us you still remain
the baby that we knew;
And we shall come, as once
we did, on wondrous wings of prayer,
And you will never know how
oft in spirit we are there.
We’ll stand beside your
bed at night, in silence bending low,
And all the love we gave you
then shall follow where you go.
Oh, we were proud of you back then, but we are prouder now;
We see the stamp of splendor God has placed upon your brow,
And we who are the folks at home shall pray the old time prayer,
And ask the God of Mercy to protect you with His care.
And as we came to you of old, although you never knew,
The hearts of us, each day and night, shall come with love to you.
Do Your All
“Do your bit!” How cheap and trite
Seems that phrase in such a fight!
“Do your bit!” That cry recall,
Change it now to “Do your all!”
Do your all, and then do more;
Do what you’re best fitted for;
Do your utmost, do and give,
You have but one life to live.
Do your finest, do your best,
Don’t let up and stop
to rest,
Don’t sit back and idly
say:
“I did something yesterday.”
Come on! Here’s
another hour,
Give it all you have of power.
Here’s another day that
needs
Everybody’s share of
deeds.
“Do your bit!”
of course, but then
Do it time and time again;
Giving, doing, all should
be
Up to full capacity.
Now’s no time to pick
and choose,
We’ve a war we must
not lose.
Be your duty great or small,
Do it well and do it all.
Do by careful, patient living,
Do by cheerful, open giving;
Do by serving day by day
At whatever post you may;
Do by sacrificing pleasure,
Do by scorning hours of leisure.
Now to God and country give
Every minute that you live.
The Future
“The worst is yet to come:”
So wail the doubters glum,
But here’s the better view:
“My best I’ve yet to do.”
The worst some always fear;
To-morrow holds no cheer,
Yet farther on life’s lane
Are joys you shall attain.
Go forward bravely, then,
And play your part as men,
For this is ever true:
“Our best we’ve yet to do.”
A Father’s Prayer
I sometimes wonder when I read the sorrow in his face
If I shall wear that look of care when time has marched apace?
My little boy is five years old and his is twenty-one;
My little boy is home with me; his boy to war has gone.
And I can laugh and dance with life, and I can gayly jest,
But heavy is the heart to-day that beats within his breast.
Time was, his boy was five years old; time was he smiled as I;
I wonder what awaits for me when youth has journeyed by?
Last night I sat at home and watched my little boy at play,
And all the time I thought of him whose boy has gone away.
And in the joy that I possessed I prayed in silence then
That God would quickly bring him back his little boy again.
The Glory of Age
“What is the glory of age?”
I said,
“A hoard of gold and a few dear friends?
When you’ve reached the day that you look
ahead
And see the place where your journey ends,
When Time has robbed you of youthful might—
What is the secret of your delight?”
And an old man smiled as he answered
me:
“The glory of age isn’t gold or
friends,
When we’ve reached the valley of Soon-To-Be
And note the place where our journey ends;
The glory of age, be it understood,
Is a boy out there who is making good.
“The greatest joy that can
come to man
When his sight is dim and his hair is gray;
The greatest glory that God can plan
To cheer the lives of the old to-day,
When they share no more in the battle yell,
Is a boy out there who is doing well.”
Beautifying the Flag
To us the Flag has little meant.
Each glorious stripe of red
Was woven there to represent
The blood of heroes dead.
On some dim, distant battle line
By other men were gained
The glories that have made it fine,
And idle we’ve remained.
But now the Flag shall finer grow
And ages yet to be
Shall find the courage that we show
To-day for liberty.
Of other men the Flag has
told;
It flies for others’
deeds;
Its pride is born of heroes
bold
Who served its
by-gone needs.
But now our blood shall mingle
there
With blood of
patriots dead,
And through the years each
stripe shall wear
A deeper, truer
To-day new glory for the Flag
We give our best
to build;
Of us shall future ages brag,
By us their blood
be thrilled;
And as to us the flag has
meant
The greatness
of the past,
The Stars and Stripes shall
represent
Our courage to
the last.
The children in the years
to be
Our trials shall
discuss,
And cheer the emblem of the
free,
In part, because
of us.
To the Men at Home
No war is won by cannon fire alone;
The soldier bears the grim and dreary role;
He dies to serve the Flag that he has known;
His duty is to gain the distant goal.
But if the toiler in his homeland fair
Falter in faith and shrink from every test,
If he be not on duty ever there,
Lost to the cause is every soldier’s best.
The men at home, the toiler
in the shop,
The keen-eyed watcher
of the spinning drill
Hear no command to vault the
trench’s top;
They know not what it
is to die or kill,
And yet they must be brave
and constant, too.
Upon them lies
their precious country’s fate;
They also serve the Flag as
soldiers do,
’Tis theirs
to make a nation’s army great.
You hold your country’s
honor in your care.
Her glory you
shall help to make or mar;
For they, who now her uniforms
must wear
Can be no braver
soldiers than you are.
From day to day, in big and
little deeds,
At bench or lathe
or desk or stretch of soil,
You are the man your country
sorely needs!
Will you not give
to her your finest toil?
No war is won by cannon fire
alone.
The men at home
must also share the fight.
By what they are, a nation’s
strength is shown,
The army but reflects
their love of right.
Will you not help to hold
our battle line,
Will you not give
the fullest of your powers
In sacrifice and service that
is fine
That victory shall
speedily be ours?
From Laughter to Labor
We have wandered afar in our hunting for pleasure,
We have scorned the soul’s duty to gather up treasure;
We have lived for our laughter and toiled for our winning
And paid little heed to the soul’s simple sinning.
But light were the burdens that freighted us then,
God and country, to-day let us prove we are men!
We have idled and dreamed in life’s merriest places,
The years have writ little of care in our faces;
We have brought up our children, expectant of gladness,
And little we’ve taught them of life and its sadness.
For distant and dim seemed the forces of wrong,
God and country, to-day let us prove we are strong!
We have had our glad years, now the sad years are coming,
We have danced to gay tunes, now we march to war’s drumming.
We have laughed and have loved as we pleasantly toiled,
And now we must show that our souls are unspoiled.
We must work that our Flag shall in honor still wave,
God and country, to-day let us prove we are brave!
United
Forgotten petty difference now,
The larger purpose glows,
The storm is here, a common fear
Its deadly lightning shows.
The Ship of State must bear us all
And danger makes us kin,
As one, we all shall rise or fall,
So shall we strive to win.
Our banner’s flying
at the mast,
Our course lies
straight ahead;
The ocean’s trough is
deep and rough,
The waves are
stained with red.
The bond of danger tighter
grows,
We serve a common
plan;
Send o’er the sea the
word that we
Are all American.
One hundred million sturdy
souls
Once more united
stand,
As one, you will find them
all behind
The banner of
our land.
And side by side they work
to-day
In silken garb
or rag,
And once again our troops
of men
Are brothers of
the flag.
And from the storm that hovers
low,
And from the angry
sea
Where dangers lurk and hate’s
at work.
Shall come new
victory.
The flag shall know not race
nor creed,
Nor different
bands of men;
A people strong round it shall
throng
To ne’er
divide again.
April Thoughts
Listen to the laughter of the brook
that’s racin’ by!
Listen to the chatter of the black-birds on
the fence!
Stand an’ see the beauties of the blue that’s
in the sky—
Then ask of God why mortals haven’t any
better sense
Than to quarrel an’ to battle
Where the guns an’ cannon rattle
An’ to slaughter one another an’
to fill the world with hate.
God brings the buds to blossom
Where the gentle breezes toss ’em
An’ the soul is blind to beauty that takes
anger for its mate.
Listen to the singin’
of the robins in the trees!
See the sunbeams
flashin’ where they’re mirrored by the
stream!
Hear the drowsy buzzin’
of the honey-seekin’ bees,
Then draw a little
closer to your God the while you dream.
When the world is dressed
to cheer you
Don’t you feel Him standin’
near you?
When your soul
drinks in the beauty of the wonders in His plan,
An’ you’ve put
away your passions,
Don’t you think the
works He fashions
In their beauty
an’ their bigness mock the littleness of man?
Oh, I never walk an orchard
nor a field with daisies strewn,
An’ I never
stand bare-headed gazin’ everywhere about
At the living joys around
me, be it morning, night or noon,
But I ask God
to forgive me that I ever held a doubt.
Surely men must walk in blindness,
With the whole world tuned
to kindness,
An’ all
dumb an’ feathered creatures fairly bubblin’
o’er with glee
To devote themselves to madness
That can only end in sadness
An’ to think
that they are being what God put them here to be.
The Chaplain
He was just a small church parson when the war broke out, and he
Looked and dressed and acted like all parsons that we see.
He wore the cleric’s broadcloth and he hooked his vest behind,
But he had a man’s religion and he had a strong man’s mind,
And he heard the call to duty, and he quit his church and went,
And he bravely tramped right with ’em everywhere the boys were sent.
He put aside his broadcloth and he put the khaki on;
Said he’d come to be a soldier and was going to live like one.
Then he refereed the prize fights that the boys pulled off at night,
And if no one else was handy he’d put on the gloves and fight.
He wasn’t there a fortnight ere he saw the soldiers’ needs,
And he said: “I’m done with preaching; this is now the time for deeds.”
He learned the sound of shrapnel,
he could tell the size of shell
From the shriek it make above
him, and he knew just where it fell.
In the front line trench he
labored, and he knew the feel of mud,
And he didn’t run from
danger and he wasn’t scared of blood.
He wrote letters for the wounded,
and he cheered them with his jokes,
And he never made a visit
without passing round the smokes.
Then one day a bullet got him, as he knelt beside a lad
Who was “going west” right speedy, and they both seemed mighty glad,
’Cause he held the boy’s hand tighter, and he smiled and whispered low,
“Now you needn’t fear the journey; over there with you I’ll go.”
And they both passed out together, arm in arm I think they went.
He had kept his vow to follow everywhere the boys were sent.
My Part
I may never be a hero, I am past the limit now,
There are pencil marks of silver Time has left upon my brow;
I shall win no service medals, I shall hear no cannons’ roar,
I shall never fight a battle higher up than eagles soar,
But I hope my children’s children may recall my name with pride
As a man who never whimpered when his soul was being tried.
For the fighting and the dying for the everlasting truth
Are the labors designated for the strongest of our youth,
And the man that’s nearing forty isn’t asked to march away,
For there is no place in battle for the head that’s turning gray.
His test is one of patience till the bitter work is done,
He must back his country’s leaders till the victory is won.
When this bitter time is ended
I don’t want to have it said
That I faltered in my courage
and I never looked ahead,
I don’t want it told
I added to the burdens and the woe,
By preaching dismal doctrines
that were cheering to the foe;
I want my children’s
children to respect me and to find
That my soul was out there
fighting, though my body stayed behind.
When this cruel test is over and the boys come back from France
I’d not have them say I hindered for a moment their advance;
That they found their duty harder than ’twas needful it should be
Because of the complaining of a lot of men like me.
Though I’ll win no hero’s medals and deserve no wild applause,
I want to be of service, not a hindrance to the cause.
The Call
Some will heed the call to arms,
But all must heed the call to grit;
The dreamers on the distant farms
Must rally now to do their bit.
The whirring lathes in factories great
Will sing the martial songs of strife;
Upon the emery wheel of fate
We’re grinding now the nation’s
life.
The call is not alone to guns,
This is not but
a battle test;
The world has summoned free
men’s sons
In every field
to do their best.
The call has come to every
man
To reach the summit
of his powers;
To stand to service where
he can;
A mighty duty
now is ours.
We must be stalwarts in the
field
Where peace has
always kept her throne,
No door against the need is
sealed,
No man to-day
can live alone.
The young apprentice at the
bench,
The wise inventor,
old and gray,
Serve with the soldier in
the trench,
All warriors for
the better day.
Oh, man of science, unto you
The call for service
now has come!
Mechanic, banker, lawyer,
too,
Have you not heard
the stirring drum?
Oh, humble digger in the ditch,
Bend to your spade
and do your best,
And prove America is rich
In manhood fine
for every test.
Each man beneath the starry
flag
Must live his
noblest through the strife
If tyranny is not to drag
Into the mire
the best of life.
Though some will wear our
uniform,
We face to-day
a common fate
And all must bravely breast
the storm
And heed the call
for courage great.
Thanksgiving
For strength to face the battle’s
might,
For men that dare to die for right,
For hearts above the lure of gold
And fortune’s soft and pleasant way,
For courage of our days of old,
Great God of All, we kneel and pray.
We thank Thee for our splendid
youth.
Who fight for liberty and truth,
Within whose breasts there glows anew
The glory of the altar fires
Which our heroic fathers knew—
God make them worthy of their sires!
We thank Thee for our mothers fair
Who through the sorrows they must bear
Still smile, and give their hearts to woe,
Yet bravely heed the day’s command—
That mothers, yet to be, may know
A free and glorious motherland.
Oh, God, we thank Thee for the
skies
Where our flag now in glory flies!
We thank Thee that no love of gain
Is leading us, but that we fight
To keep our banner free from stain
And that we die for what is right.
Oh, God, we thank Thee that we
may
Lift up our eyes to Thee to-day;
We thank Thee we can face this test
With honor and a spotless name,
And that we serve a world distressed
Unselfishly and free from shame.
A Patriotic Wish
I’d like to be the sort of man the flag could boast about;
I’d like to be the sort of man it cannot live without;
I’d like to be the type of man
That really is American:
The head-erect and shoulders-square,
Clean-minded fellow, just and fair,
That all men picture when they see
The glorious banner of the free.
I’d like to be the sort
of man the flag now typifies,
The kind of man we really
want the flag to symbolize;
The loyal brother to a trust,
The big, unselfish soul and
just,
The friend of every man oppressed,
The strong support of all
that’s best—
The sturdy chap the banner’s
meant,
Where’er it flies, to
represent.
I’d like to be the sort
of man the flag’s supposed to mean,
The man that all in fancy
see, wherever it is seen;
The chap that’s ready
for a fight
Whenever there’s a wrong
to right,
The friend in every time of
need,
The doer of the daring deed,
The clean and generous handed
man
That is a real American.
A Patriot
It’s funny when a feller wants to do his little bit,
And wants to wear a uniform and lug a soldier’s kit,
And ain’t afraid of submarines nor mines that fill the sea,
They will not let him go along to fight for liberty
They make him stay at home and be his mother’s darling pet,
But you can bet there’ll come a time when they will want me yet.
I want to serve the Stars and Stripes, I want to go and fight,
I want to lick the Kaiser good, and do the job up right.
I know the way to use a gun and I can dig a trench
And I would like to go and help the English and the French.
But no, they say, you cannot march away to stirring drums;
Be mother’s angel boy at home; stay there and twirl your thumbs.
I’ve read about the daring boys that fight up in the sky;
It seems to me that that must be a splendid way to die.
I’d like to drive an aeroplane and prove my courage grim
And get above a German there and drop a bomb on him,
But they won’t let me go along to help the latest drive;
They say my mother needs me here because I’m only five.
Memorial Day
The finest tribute we can pay
Unto our hero dead to-day,
Is not a rose wreath, white and red,
In memory of the blood they shed;
It is to stand beside each mound,
Each couch of consecrated ground,
And pledge ourselves as warriors true
Unto the work they died to do.
Into God’s valleys where
they lie
At rest, beneath the open
sky,
Triumphant now, o’er
every foe,
As living tributes let us
go.
No wreath of rose or immortelles
Or spoken word or tolling
bells
Will do to-day, unless we
give
Our pledge that liberty shall
live.
Our hearts must be the roses
red
We place above our hero dead;
To-day beside their graves
we must
Renew allegiance to their
trust;
Must bare our heads and humbly
say
We hold the Flag as dear as
they,
And stand, as once they stood,
to die
To keep the Stars and Stripes
on high.
The finest tribute we can
pay
Unto our hero dead to-day
Is not of speech or roses
red,
But living, throbbing hearts
instead
That shall renew the pledge
they sealed
With death upon the battlefield:
That freedom’s flag
shall bear no stain
And free men wear no tyrant’s
chain.
The Soldier on Crutches
He came down the stairs on the laughter-filled grill
Where patriots were eating and drinking their fill,
The tap of his crutch on the marble of white
Caught my ear as I sat all alone there that night.
I turned—and a soldier my eyes fell upon,
He had fought for his country, and one leg was gone!
As he entered a silence fell over the place;
Every eye in the room was turned up to his face.
His head was up high and his eyes seemed aflame
With a wonderful light, and he laughed as he came.
He was young—not yet thirty—yet never he made
One sign of regret for the price he had paid.
One moment before this young
soldier came in
I had caught bits of speech
in the clatter and din
From the fine men about me
in life’s dress parade
Who were boasting the cash
sacrifices they’d made;
And I’d thought of my
own paltry service with pride,
When I turned and that hero
of battle I spied.
I shall never forget the hot flushes
of shame
That rushed to my cheeks as that young fellow
came.
He was cheerful and smiling and clear-eyed and
fine
And out of his face golden light seemed to shine.
And I thought as he passed me on crutches:
“How small
Are the gifts that I make if I don’t give
my all.”
Some day in the future in many a place
More soldiers just like him we’ll all have to face.
We must sit with them, talk with them, laugh with them, too,
With the signs of their service forever in view
And this was my thought as I looked at him then
—Oh, God! make me worthy to stand with such men.
The Friendly Greeting
Oh, we have friends in England, and we have friends in France,
And should we have to travel there through some strange circumstance,
Undaunted we should sail away, and gladly should we go,
Because awaiting us would be somebody that we know.
Full many a journey here we make where countless strangers roam,
Yet everywhere our faces turn we find a friend from home.
Oh, we have friends in distant towns, and friends ’neath foreign skies,
And yet we think of him as lost whene’er a loved one dies.
Yet he has merely traveled on, as many a friend must do;
Within a distant city fair he waits for me and you,
And when shall come our time to make that journey through the gloam,
To welcome us he will be there, the smiling friend from home.
We Need a Few More Optimists
We need a few more optimists,
The kind that double up their fists
And set their jaws, determined-like,
A blow at infamy to strike.
Not smiling men, who drift along
And compromise with every wrong;
Not grinning optimists who cry
That right was never born to die,
But optimists who’ll fight to give
The truth an honest chance to live.
We need a few more optimists
For places in our fighting
lists,
The kind of hopeful men who
make
Real sacrifice for freedom’s
sake;
The optimist, with purpose
strong,
Who stands to battle every
wrong,
Takes off his coat, and buckles
in
The better joys of earth to
win!
The optimist who worries lest
The vile should overthrow
the best.
We need a few more optimists,
The brave of heart that long
resists
The force of Hate and Greed
and lust
And keeps in God and man his
trust,
Believing, as he makes his
fight
That everything will end all
right—
Yet through the dreary days
and nights
Unfalteringly serves and fights,
And helps to gain the joys
which he
Believes are some day sure
to be.
We need a few more optimists
Of iron hearts and sturdy
wrists;
Not optimists who smugly smile
And preach that in a little
while
The clouds will fade before
the sun,
But cheerful men who’ll
bear a gun,
And hopeful men, of courage
stout,
Who’ll see disaster
round about
And yet will keep their faith,
and fight,
And gain the victory for right.
Taking His Place
He’s doing double duty now;
Time’s silver gleams upon his brow,
And there are lines upon his face
Which only passing years can trace.
And yet he’s turned back many a page
Long written in the book of age,
For since their boy has marched away,
This kindly father, growing gray,
Is doing for the mother true
The many things the boy would do.
Just as the son came home
each night
With youthful step and eyes
alight,
So he returns, and with a
shout
Of greeting puts her grief
to rout.
He says that she shall never
miss
The pleasure of that evening
kiss,
And with strong arms and manner
brave
He simulates the hug he
gave,
And loves her, when the day
is done,
Both as a husband and a son.
His laugh has caught a clearer
ring;
His step has claimed the old-time
swing,
And though his absence
hurts him, too,
The bravest thing that he
can do
Is just to try to take his
place
And keep the smiles on mother’s
face.
So, merrily he jests at night—
Tells her with all a boy’s
delight
Of what has happened in the
town,
And thus keeps melancholy
down.
Her letters breathe of hope
and cheer;
No note of gloom she sends
from here,
And as her husband reads at
night
The many messages she writes,
He chuckles o’er the
closing line.
She’s failed his secret
to divine—
“When you get home,”
she tells the lad,
“You’ll scarcely
know your doting dad;
Although his hair is turning
gray,
He seems more like a boy each
day.”
Christmas, 1918
They give their all, this Christmastide,
that peace on earth shall reign;
Upon the snows of Flanders now, brave blood has
left its stain;
With ribbons red we deck our gifts; theirs bear
the red of pain.
They give their lives that joy
shall live and little children play;
They pass that all that makes for peace shall
not be swept away;
They die that children yet unborn shall have their
Christmas Day.
Come! deck the home with holly
wreaths and make this Christmas glow,
And let Old Glory wave above
the bough of mistletoe!
Come! keep alive the faith
of them who sleep ’neath Flanders snow.
Ye brave of heart who dwell
at home, make merry now a-while;
The world has need of Christmas
cheer its sorrows to beguile;
And blest is he whose love
can light grief’s corners with a smile.
Ring out once more, sweet Christmas
bells, your message to the sky,
Proclaim in golden tones again to every passer-by
That peace shall rule the lands of earth, and
only war shall die.
Let love’s sweet tenderness
relieve war’s cruel crimson clutch,
Send forth the Christmas spirit, every troubled
heart to touch;
Blest will be all we do for them who do for us
so much.
The New Year
Come you with dangers to fright
us? or hazards
to try out our souls?
Then may you find us undaunted; determined to
get to our goals.
Now, white are the pages you bring us to fill
with the tales of our deeds,
And I pray we shall square at the finish the work
of our lives with our creeds.
Oh, child of a year, do you wonder
what here
upon earth you shall find?
America shows you a people united in purpose
and mind;
Whatever you bring us of danger, whatever you
hold to affright,
I pray that we never shall lower our standards
of truth and of right.
You find us a people united, full
pledged to the
work of the world,
To banish the despot and tyrant, our banner in
battle’s unfurled;
And here to a world that is bleeding and weary
and heartsick you come,
Whatever you’ve brought us of duty—we’ll
answer the call of your drum.
We may weep in our grief and our
sorrows, we
may bend ’neath the might of the blow,
But never our courage shall falter, and never
we’ll run from the foe.
We know not how troubled our pathways shall
be nor how sorely beset,
But I pray we shall cling to our honor as men
and never our purpose forget.
Our Duty to Our Flag
Less hate and greed
Is what we need
And more of service true;
More men to love
The flag above
And keep it first in view.
Less boast and brag
About the flag,
More faith in what it means;
More heads erect,
More self-respect,
Less talk of war machines.
The time to fight
To keep it bright
Is not along the way,
Nor ’cross the foam,
But here at home
Within ourselves—to-day.
’Tis we must love
That flag above
With all our might and main;
For from our hands—
Not distant lands—
Shall come dishonor’s
stain.
If that flag be
Dishonored, we
Have done it—–not the foe;
If it shall fall,
We, first of all,
Shall have to strike the blow.
The Unsettled Scores
The men are talking peace at ’ome,
but ’ere we’re talking fight,
There’s many a little debt we’ve
got to square;
A sniper sent a bullet through my bunkie’s
’ead last night,
And ’is body’s lying somewhere h’over
there.
Oh, we ’ear a lot of rumors
that the war is h’almost through
But Hi’m thinking that it’s only
arf begun;
Every soldier in the trenches has a little debt
that’s due
And Hi’m telling you it’s not a
money one.
We ’ave ’eard
the bullets whistle and we’ve ’card the
shrapnel sing
And we’ve
listened to a dying comrade’s pleas,
And we’ve ’eard
about the comfort that the days of peace will bring,
But we’ve
debts that can’t be settled h’over seas.
They that ’aven’t
slept in trenches, ’aven’t brothered with
the worms,
’Aven’t
’ad a bunkie slaughtered at their side,
May some day get together
and arrange some sort of terms,
But it isn’t
likely we’ll be satisfied.
There are debts we want to settle,
’and to ’and, and face to face,
There are one or two Hi’ve promised that
Hi’d square;
And Hi cannot ’old my ’ead up, ’ere
or in the other place,
Till Hi’ve settled for my bunkie, lying
there.
Warriors
We all are warriors with sin.
Crusading knights,
we come to earth
With spotless plumes and shining shields to joust
with foes and prove our worth.
The world is but a battlefield where strong and
weak men fill the lists,
And some make war with humble prayers, and
some with swords and some with fists.
And some for pleasure or for peace forsake their
purposes and goals
And barter for the scarlet joys of ease and pomp,
their knightly souls.
We’re all enlisted soldiers
here, in service for
the term called life
And each of us in some grim way must bear his
portion of the strife.
Temptations everywhere assail. Men do not
rise
by fearing sin,
Nor he who keeps within his tent, unharmed,
unscratched, the crown shall win.
When wrongs are trampling mortals down and
rank injustice stalks about,
Real manhood to the battle flies, and dies or
puts
the foes to rout.
’Tis not the new and shining
blade that marks
the soldier of the field,
His glory is his broken sword, his pride the
scars upon his shield;
The crimson stains that sin has left upon his
soul are tongues that speak
The victory of new found strength by one who
yesterday was weak.
And meaningless the spotless plume, the shining
blade that goes through life
And quits this naming battlefield without one
evidence of strife.
We all are warriors with sin, we
all are knights
in life’s crusades,
And with some form of tyranny, we’re sent
to
earth to measure blades.
The courage of the soul must gleam in conflict
with some fearful foe,
No man was ever born to life its luxuries alone
to know.
And he who brothers with a sin to keep his outward
garb unsoiled
And fears to battle with a wrong, shall find his
soul decayed and spoiled.
Easy Service
When an empty sleeve or a sightless
eye
Or a legless form I see,
I breathe my thanks to my God on High
For His watchful care o’er me.
And I say to myself, as the cripple goes
Half stumbling on his way:
I may brag and boast, but that brother knows
Why the old flag floats to-day.
I think as I sit in my cozy
den
Puffing one of
my many pipes
That I’ve served with
all of my fellow men
The glorious Stars
and Stripes.
Then I see a troop in the
faded blue
And a few in the
dusty gray,
And I have to laugh at the
deeds I do
For the flag that
floats to-day.
I see men tangled in pointed
wire,
The sport of the
blazing sun,
Mangled and maimed by a leaden
fire
As the tides of
battle run,
And I fancy I hear their piteous
calls
For merciful death,
and then
The cannons cease and the
darkness falls,
And those fluttering
things are men.
Out there in the night they
beg for death,
Yet the Reaper
spurns their cries,
And it seems his jest to leave
them breath
For their pitiful
pleas and sighs.
And I am here in my cozy room
In touch with
the joys of life,
I am miles away from the fields
of doom
And the gory scenes
of strife.
I never have vainly called
for aid,
Nor suffered real
pangs of thirst,
I have marched with life in
its best parade
And never have
seen its worst.
In the flowers of ease I have
ever basked,
And I think as
the Flag I see
How much of service from some
it’s asked,
How little of
toil from me.
A Father’s Thoughts
Because I am his father, they
Expect me to put grief away;
Because I am a man, and rough
And sometimes short of speech and gruff,
The women folks at home believe
His absence doesn’t make me grieve;
But how I felt, they little know,
The day I smiled and let him go.
They little know the dreams
I had
Long cherished for my sturdy
lad;
They little guess the wrench
it meant
That day when off to war he
went;
They little know the tears
I checked
While standing, smiling and
erect;
They never heard my smothered
sigh
When it was time to say good-bye.
“What does his father
think and say?”
The neighbors ask from day
to day.
“Oh, he’s a man,”
they answer then.
“And you know how it
is with men.
But little do they ever say,
They do not feel the self-same
way;
He seems indifferent and grim
And yet he’s very proud
of him.”
Indifferent and grim!
Oh, heart,
Be brave enough to play the
part,
Let not the grief in you be
shown,
Keep all your loneliness unknown,
To you the women folks must
turn
For comfort when their sorrows
burn.
You must not at this time
reveal
The pain and anguish that
you feel.
Oh, tongue, be silent through
the years,
And eyes, keep back always
the tears,
And let them never see or
know
My hidden weight of grief
and woe.
Though every golden dream
I had
Was centered in my little
lad,
Alone my sorrow I must bear.
They must not know how much
I care.
Though women folks may talk
and weep,
A man, unseen, his grief must
keep,
And hide behind his smile
and pride
The loneliness that dwells
inside.
And so, from day to day, I
go,
Playing the part of man, although
Beneath the rough outside
and grim,
I think and dream and pray
for him.
The Waiter at the Camp
The officers’ friend is the waiter at camp.
In the night air ’twas cold and was bitterly damp,
And they asked me to dine, which I readily did,
For at dining I’ve talents I never keep hid.
Then a bright-eyed young fellow came in with the meat,
And straightway the troop of us started to eat.
I silently noticed that young fellow wait
At each officer’s side ’til he’d filled up his plate;
I was startled a bit at the very first look
By the size of the helping each officer took,
And I thought as I sat there among them that night
Of the army’s effect on a man’s appetite.
The waiter at last brought
the platter to me
And modestly proper I started
to be.
A small piece of meat then
I gracefully took;
The young fellow stood there
and gave me a look.
“Better get all you
want,” he remarked to me then,
“I pass this way once,
but I don’t come again.”
I turned in amazement. He nodded his head
In a way that convinced me he meant what he said.
I knew from his manner and smile on his lip
That the rule in the army is “no second trip.”
And I thought as he left me my food to attack,
Life gives us one chance, but it never comes back.
The Complacent Slacker
When he was just a lad in school,
He used to sit around and fool
And watch the clock and say:
“I can’t see that I’ll ever
need
This stuff the teacher makes me read,
I’ll work no more to-day.
And anyhow it’s almost June
And school days will be over soon.”
One time we played a baseball
game,
And when a chance for stealing
came,
On second base
he stood,
And when we asked him why,
he said:
“What was the use, they’re
far ahead,
One run would
do no good.
The game is almost over now,
We couldn’t win it anyhow.”
The same old slacker still
is he,
With men at war on land and
sea,
And our lads plunging
in it;
He spreads afar his old excuse.
“I’d like to help,
but what’s the use,
The Allied troops
will win it.
There’s nothing now
to make us fret, there,
They’ll have it won
before we get there.”
The worst of slackers is the
man
Who will not help whene’er
he can,
But plays the
idle rover,
And tells to all beset with
doubt
There’s naught to be
alarmed about,
The storm will
soon be over.
Let no such dangerous person
lead us,
To-day in France they sadly
need us.
A Christmas Greeting
Here’s to you, little mother,
With your boy so far away;
May the joy of service smother
All your grief this Christmas day;
May the magic of his splendor
Thrill your spirit through and through
And may all that’s fine and tender
Make a smiling day for you.
May you never know the sadness
That from day
to day you dread;
May you never find but gladness
In the Flag that’s
overhead;
May the good God watch above
him
As he stands to
duty stern,
And at last to all who love
him
May he have a
safe return.
Little mother, take the blessing
Of a grateful
nation’s heart;
May the news that is distressing
Never cause your
tears to start;
May there be no fears to haunt
you,
And no lonely
hours and sad;
May your trials never daunt
you,
But may every
day be glad.
Little Mother, could I do
it,
This my Christmas
gift would be:
That he’d safely battle
through it,
This to you I’d
guarantee.
And I’d pledge to you
this morning
Joys to banish
all your cares,
Gifts of gold and silver scorning,
I would answer
all your prayers.
Ideals
Better than land or gold or trade
Are a high ideal and a purpose true;
Better than all of the wealth we’ve made
Is the work for others that now we do.
For Rome grew rich and she turned to song
And danced to music and drank her wine,
But she sapped the strength of her fibres strong
And a gilded shroud was her splendor fine.
The Rome of old with its wealth
and wine
Was the handiwork
of a sturdy race;
They builded well and they
made it fine
And they dreamed
of it as their children’s place.
They thought the joys they
had won to give,
And which seemed
so certain and fixed and sure,
To the end of time in the
world would live
And the Rome they’d
fashioned would long endure.
They passed to their children
the hoarded gold,
Their marble halls
and their fertile fields!
But not the spirit of Rome
of old,
Nor the Roman
courage that never yields.
They left them the wealth
that their hands had won,
But they failed
to leave them a purpose true.
They left them thinking life’s
work all done,
And Rome went
down and was lost to view.
We must guard ourselves lest
we follow Rome.
We must leave
our children the finer things.
We must teach them love of
the spot called home
And the lasting
joy that a purpose brings.
For vain are our Flag and
our battles won,
And vain are our
lands and our stores of gold,
If our children feel that
life’s work is done.
We must give them
a high ideal to hold.
Rebellion
“My Crown Prince was fine
and fair,” a sorrowful
father said,
“But he marched away with his regiment and
they tell me that he’s dead!
‘We all must go,’ he whispered low,
’We must
fight for the Fatherland.’
Now the heart of me’s torn with the grief
I
know, and I cannot understand,
For none of the Kaiser’s princes lie out
there
where my soldier sleeps;
Here’s a land where grief is the common
lot, but
never the Kaiser weeps.
“My Crown Prince was a kindly
prince, and his
eyes were gentle, too,
And glad were the days of his youth to me when
his wonderful smile I knew.
Then the Kaiser flattered and spoke him well,
and he sent him out to die,
But his Crown Prince hasn’t felt one hurt
and
the heart of me questions why?
He talks of war in his regal way and he boasts
of his strength to strike,
But his boys all live and he doesn’t know
what
the sting of a bullet’s like.
“Rebellion gnaws at the soul
of me as I think
of his Crown Prince gay,
And my Prince cold in the arms of death, and
harsh are the things I say.
I join with the grief-torn muttering men who
challenge the Kaiser’s right
To build his joys on the graves of ours.
We
shall rise in our wrath to smite!
And this is the thing we shall ask of him:
to
give us the reason why
Our boys must fall on his battlefields, but never
his boys must die?”
Drafted
The biggest moment in our lives was that when first he cried,
From that day unto this, for him, we’ve struggled side by side.
We can recount his daily deeds, and backwards we can look,
And proudly live again the time when first a step he took.
I see him trudging off to school, his mother at his side,
And when she left him there alone she hurried home and cried.
And then the sturdy chap of eight that was, I proudly see,
Who packed a little grip and took a fishing trip with me.
Among the lists of boys to
go his name has now appeared;
To us has come the sacrifice
that mothers all have feared;
And though we dread the parting
hour when he shall march away,
We love him and the Flag too
much to ask of him to stay.
His baby ways shall march with him, and every joy we’ve had,
Somewhere in France some day shall be a little brown-eyed lad;
A toddler and a child at school, the chum that once I knew
Shall wear our country’s uniform, for they’ve been drafted, too.
Reflection
You have given me riches and ease,
You have given me joys through the years,
I have sat in the shade of your trees,
With the song of your birds in my ears.
I have drunk of your bountiful wine
And done as I’ve chosen to do,
But, oh wonderful country of mine,
’How little have I done for you!
You have given me safe harbor
from harm,
Untroubled I’ve
slept through the nights
And have waked to the new
morning’s charm
And claimed as
my own its delights.
I have taken the finest of
fine
From your orchards
and fields where it grew,
But, oh wonderful country
of mine,
How little I’ve
given to you!
You have given me a home and
a place
Where in safety
my babies may play;
Health blooms on each bright
dimpled face
And laughter is
theirs every day.
You have guarded from danger
the shrine
Where I worship
when toiling is through,
But, oh wonderful country
of mine,
How little have
I done for you!
I have taken your gifts without
thought,
I have reveled
in joys that you gave,
That I see now with blood
had been bought,
The blood of your
earlier braves.
I have lived without making
one sign
That the source
of my riches I knew,
Now, oh wonderful country
of mine,
I’m here
to do something for you!
A Wish
God grant my children may
Not think in terms of gold
When I have passed away
And my poor form is cold.
When I no more shall be,
If of me they would brag,
I’d have them speak of me
As one who loved the Flag.
God grant my children may
Not speak of me
as one
Who trod a selfish way,
When I am dead
and gone.
When they recall my name
I’d have
them tell that I
Held dear my Country’s
fame
And kept her standards
high.
Not for the things I gave
Would I be counted
kind;
When I am in my grave,
If they my worth
would find,
I’d have them read it
there
In red and white
and blue
And stars of radiance rare!
And say that I
was true.
Living
If through the years we’re
not to do
Much finer deeds than we have done;
If we must merely wander through
Time’s garden, idling in the sun;
If there is nothing big ahead,
Why do we fear to join the dead?
Unless to-morrow means that we
Shall do some needed service here;
That tasks are waiting you and me
That will be lost, save we appear;
Then why this dreadful thought of sorrow
That we may never see to-morrow?
If all our finest deeds are
done,
And all our splendor’s
in the past;
If there’s no battle
to be won,
What matter if
to-day’s our last?
Is life so sweet that we would
live
Though nothing back to life
we give?
Not to have lived through seventy
years
Is greatness. Fitter to be sung
In poet’s praises and in cheers
Is he who dies in action, young;
Who ventures all for one great deed
And gives his life to serve life’s need.
Life’s Slacker
The saddest sort of death to die
Would be to quit the game called life
And know, beneath the gentle sky,
You’d lived a slacker in the strife.
That nothing men on earth would find
To mark the spot that you had filled;
That you must go and leave behind
No patch of soil your hands had tilled.
I know no greater shame than
this:
To feel that yours
were empty years;
That after death no man would
miss
Your presence
in this vale of tears;
That you had breathed the
fragrant air
And sat by kindly
fires that burn,
And in earth’s riches
had a share
But gave no labor
in return.
Yet some men die this way,
nor care:
They enter and
they leave life’s door
And at the end, their record’s
bare—
The world’s
no better than before.
A few false tears are shed,
and then,
In busy service,
they’re forgot.
We have no time to mourn for
men
Who lived on earth
but served it not.
A man in perfect peace to
die
Must leave some
mark of toil behind,
Some building towering to
the sky,
Some symbol that
his heart was kind,
Some roadway where strange
feet may tread
That out of gratitude
he made;
He cannot bravely look ahead
Unless his debt
to life is paid.
The Proof of Worth
Though victory’s proof of
the skill you possess,
Defeat is the proof of your grit;
A weakling can smile in his days of success,
But at trouble’s first sign he will quit.
So the test of the heart and the test of your
pluck
Isn’t skies that are sunny and fair,
But how do you stand to the blow that is struck
And how do you battle despair?
A fool can seem wise when
the pathway is clear
And it’s
easy to see the way out,
But the test of man’s
judgment is something to fear,
And what does
he do when in doubt?
And the proof of his faith
is the courage he shows
When sorrows lie
deep in his breast;
It’s the way that he
suffers the griefs that he knows
That brings out
his worst or his best.
The test of a man is how much
he will bear
For a cause which
he knows to be right,
How long will he stand in
the depths of despair,
How much will
he suffer and fight?
There are many to serve when
the victory’s near
And few are the
hurts to be borne,
But it calls for a leader
of courage to cheer
The men in a battle
forlorn.
It’s the way you hold
out against odds that are great
That proves what
your courage is worth,
It’s the way that you
stand to the bruises of fate
That shows up
your stature and girth.
And victory’s nothing
but proof of your skill,
Veneered with
a glory that’s thin,
Unless it is proof of unfaltering
will,
And unless you
have suffered to win.
Follow a Famous Father
I follow a famous father,
His honor is mine to wear;
He gave me a name that was free from shame,
A name he was proud to bear.
He lived in the morning sunlight,
And marched in the ranks of right.
He was always true to the best he knew
And the shield that he wore was bright.
I follow a famous father,
And never a day
goes by
But I feel that he looks down
to me
To carry his standard
high.
He stood to the sternest trials
As only a brave
man can;
Though the way be long, I
must never wrong
The name of so
good a man.
I follow a famous father,
Not known to the
printed page,
Nor written down in the world’s
renown
As a prince of
his little age.
But never a stain attached
to him
And never he stooped
to shame;
He was bold and brave and
to me he gave
The pride of an
honest name.
I follow a famous father,
And him I must
keep in mind;
Though his form is gone, I
must carry on
The name that
he left behind.
It was mine on the day he
gave it,
It shone as a
monarch’s crown,
And as fair to see as it came
to me
It must be when
I pass it down.
The Important Thing
He was playing in the garden when we called him in for tea,
But he didn’t seem to hear us, so I went out there to see
What the little rogue was up to, and I stooped and asked him why,
When he heard his mother calling, he had made her no reply.
“I am playing war,” he told me, “and I’m up against defeat,
And until I stop the Germans I can’t take the time to eat.”
“Isn’t supper so important that you’ll quit your round of play?
Don’t you want to eat the shortcake mother made for you to-day?”
Then I asked him, but he answered as he shook his little head:
“I don’t dare to stop for shortcake, if I do they’ll kill me dead!
When I drive them from their trenches, then to supper I’ll come in,
But I mustn’t stop a minute, ’cause this war I’ve got to win.”
I left him in his battle,
left him there to end his play,
For he’d taught to me
a lesson that is needed much to-day;
Not the lure of cake could
turn him from the work he had to do;
There was nothing so important
as to see his struggle through.
And I wondered all that evening,
as he slumbered in his bed
If we’d risen to the
meaning of the work that lies ahead?
Are we roused to the importance of the danger in our way?
Are we thinking still of pleasures as we thought but yesterday?
Are our comforts and our riches in our minds still uppermost?
Must we wait, to see our danger, till the foe is on our coast?
Oh, there’s nothing so important, nothing now that’s worth a pin
Save the war that we are fighting. It’s a war we’ve got to win.
Selfishness
Search history, my boy, and see
What petty selfishness has done.
Find if you can one victory
That little minds have ever won.
There is no record there to read
Of men who fought for self alone,
No instance of a single deed
splendor they may proudly own.
Through all life’s story
you will find
The miser—with
his hoarded gold—
A hermit, dreary and unkind,
An outcast from
the human fold.
Men hold him up to view with
scorn,
A creature by
his wealth enslaved,
A spirit craven and forlorn,
Doomed by the
money he has saved.
No man was ever truly great
Who sought to
serve himself alone,
Who put himself above the
state,
Above the friends
about him thrown.
No man was ever truly glad
Who risked his
joy on hoarded pelf,
And gave of nothing that he
had
Through fear of
needing it himself.
For selfishness is wintry
cold,
And bitter are
its joys at last,
The very charms it tries to
hold,
With woes are
quickly overcast.
And only he shall gladly live,
And bravely die
when God shall call,
Who gathers but that he may
give,
And with his fellows
shares his all.
Constant Beauty
It’s good to have the trees
again, the singing of the breeze again,
It’s good to see the lilacs bloom as lovely
as of old.
It’s good that we can feel again, the touch
of beauties real again,
For hearts and minds, of sorrow now, have all
that they can hold.
The roses haven’t changed
a bit, nor have the peonies stranged a bit,
They bud and bloom the way they did before the
war began.
The world is upside down to-day, there’s
much to make us frown to-day
And gloom and sadness everywhere beset the path
of man.
But now the lilacs bloom again
and give us their perfume again
And now the roses
smile at us and nod along the way;
And it is good to see again
the blossoms on each tree again
And feel that nature hasn’t
changed the way we have to-day.
Oh, we have changed from what we
were, we’re not the carefree lot we were,
Our hearts are filled with sorrow now and grave
concern and pain,
But it is good to see once more the budding lilac
tree once more,
And find the constant roses here to comfort
us again.
When the Drums Shall Cease to Beat
When will the laughter ring again in the way that it used to do?
Not till the soldiers come home again, not till the war is through.
When will the holly gleam again and the Christmas candles burn?
Not till the swords are sheathed once more and the brave of our
land return.
When will happy hearts meet again in the lights of the Christmas tree?
Not till the cannons cease their roar and the sailors come from sea.
When shall we sing as we used to do and dance in the old-time way?
Not till the soldiers come home again and the bugles cease to play.
Oh, dull is the red of the
holly now and faintly the candles burn;
And we long for the smile
of the missing face and the absent one’s return.
We long for the laughter we
used to know and the love that made
giving sweet,
But we must wait for the joys
of old till the drums shall cease to beat.
We shall laugh once more as we
used to do, and dance in the old-time way,
For this is the pledge they have made to us who
serve in the war to-day;
And the joys of home that we treasure so are the
joys that their lives
defend,
And they shall give us our Christmas time as soon
as the war shall end.
Prophecy
We shall thank our God for graces
That we’ve never known before;
We shall look on manlier faces
When our troubled days are o’er.
We shall rise a better nation
From the battle’s grief and grime,
And shall win our soul’s salvation
In this bitter trial time.
And the old Flag waving o’er us
In the dancing morning sun
Will be daily singing for us
Of a splendor new begun.
When the rifles cease to rattle
And the cannon
cease to roar,
When is passed the smoke of
battle
And the death
lists are no more,
With a yet undreamed of beauty
As a people we
shall rise,
And a love of right and duty
Shall be gleaming
in our eyes.
As a country, tried by sorrow,
With a heritage
of worth,
We shall stand in that to-morrow
With the leaders
of the earth.