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.