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,