Chapter I: Have a Rendezvous with Death1 (2)

Oh ye whose hearts are resonant, and ring to War’s romance,
Hear ye the story of a boy, a peasant boy of France;
A lad uncouth and warped with toil, yet who, when trial came,
Could feel within his soul upleap and soar, the sacred flame;
Could stand upright, and scorn and smite, as only heroes may:
Oh, harken! Let me try to tell the tale of Jean Desprez.

With fire and sword the Teuton horde was ravaging the land,
And there was darkness and despair, grim death on every hand;
Red fields of slaughter sloping down to ruin’s black abyss;
The wolves of war ran evil-fanged, and little did they miss.
And on they came with fear and flame, to burn and loot and slay,
Until they reached the red-roofed croft, the home of Jean Desprez.

“Rout out of the village, one and all!” the Uhlan Captain said.
“Behold! Some hand has fired a shot. My trumpeter is dead.
Now shall they Prussian vengeance know; now shall they rue the day,
For by this sacred German slain, ten of these dogs shall pay.”

They drove the cowering peasants forth, women and babes and men,
And from the last, with many a jeer, the Captain chose the ten;
Ten simple peasants, bowed with toil; they stood, they knew not why
Against the grey wall of the church, hearing their children cry;
Hearing their wives and mothers wail, with faces dazed they stood.
A moment only.... _Ready! Fire!_ They weltered in their blood.

But there was one who gazed unseen, who heard the frenzied cries,
Who saw these men in sabots fall before their children’s eyes;
A Zouave wounded in a ditch, and knowing death was nigh,
He laughed with joy: “Ah! here is where I settle ere I die.”
He clutched his rifle once again, and long he aimed and well....
A shot! Beside his victims ten the Uhlan Captain fell.

They dragged the wounded Zouave out; their rage was like a flame.
With bayonets they pinned him down, until their Major came.
A blond, full-blooded man he was, and arrogant of eye.
He stared to see with shattered skull his favorite Captain lie.
“Nay, do not finish him so quick, this foreign swine,” he cried;
“Go nail him to the big church door: he shall be crucified.”

With bayonets through hands and feet they nailed the Zouave there,
And there was anguish in his eyes, and horror in his stare;
“Water! A single drop!” he moaned; but how they jeered at him,
And mocked him with an empty cup, and saw his sight grow dim;
And as in agony of death with blood his lips were wet,
The Prussian Major gaily laughed, and lit a cigarette.

But ’mid the white-faced villagers who cowered in horror by,
Was one who saw the woeful sight, who heard the woeful cry:
“Water! One little drop, I beg! For love of Christ who died....”
It was the little Jean Desprez who turned and stole aside;
It was the little barefoot boy who came with cup abrim
And walked up to the dying man, and gave the drink to him.

A roar of rage! They seize the boy; they tear him fast away.
The Prussian Major swings around; no longer is he gay.
His teeth are wolfishly agleam; his face all dark with spite:
“Go, shoot the brat,” he snarls, “that dare defy our Prussian might.
Yet stay! I have another thought. I’ll kindly be, and spare.
Quick! give the lad a rifle charged, and set him squarely there,
And bid him shoot, and shoot to kill. Haste! Make him understand
The dying dog he fain would save shall perish by his hand.
And all his kindred they shall see, and all shall curse his name,
Who bought his life at such a cost, the price of death and shame.”

They brought the boy, wild-eyed with fear; they made him understand;
They stood him by the dying man, a rifle in his hand.
“Make haste!” said they; “the time is short, and you must kill or die.”
The Major puffed his cigarette, amusement in his eye.
And then the dying Zouave heard, and raised his weary head:
“Shoot, son, ’twill be the best for both; shoot swift and
straight,” he said.
“Fire first and last, and do not flinch; for lost to hope am I;
And I will murmur: Vive la France! and bless you ere I die.”

Half-blind with blows the boy stood there; he seemed to swoon and sway;
Then in that moment woke the soul of little Jean Desprez.
He saw the woods go sheening down; the larks were singing clear;
And oh! the scents and sounds of spring, how sweet they were! how dear!
He felt the scent of new-mown hay, a soft breeze fanned his brow;
O God! the paths of peace and toil! How precious were they now!

The summer days and summer ways, how bright with hope and bliss!
The autumn such a dream of gold; and all must end in this:
This shining rifle in his hand, that shambles all around;
The Zouave there with dying glare; the blood upon the ground;
The brutal faces round him ringed, the evil eyes aflame;
That Prussian bully standing by as if he watched a game.
“Make haste and shoot,” the Major sneered; a minute more I give;
A minute more to kill your friend, if you yourself would live.”

They only saw a barefoot boy, with blanched and twitching face;
They did not see within his eyes the glory of his race;
The glory of a million men who for fair France have died,
The splendor of self-sacrifice that will not be denied.
Yet he was but a peasant lad, and oh! but life was sweet.
“Your minute’s nearly gone, my lad,” he heard a voice repeat.
“Shoot! Shoot!” the dying Zouave moaned; “Shoot! Shoot!” the
soldier said.
Then Jean Desprez reached out and shot ... _the Prussian Major dead_!

SUDDENLY ONE DAY

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

FROM THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE

Found in the pocket of Capt. T. P. C. Wilson, a British officer,
killed in action.

Suddenly one day
The last ill shall fall away.
The last little beastliness that is in our blood
Shall drop from us as the sheath drops from the bud,
And the great spirit of man shall struggle through
And spread huge branches underneath the blue.
In any mirror, be it bright or dim,
Man will see God, staring back at him.

WE’RE MARCHIN’ WITH THE COUNTRY

FRANK L. STANTON

IN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION

The old flag is a-doin’ her very level best,
She’s a rainbow roun’ the country from the rosy east to the west;
An’ the eagle’s in the elements with sunshine on his breast,
An’ we’re marchin’ with the country in the mornin’!

We’re marchin’ to the music that is ringin’ far and nigh;
You can hear the hallelujahs as the regiments go by;
We’ll live for this old country, or for freedom’s cause we’ll die--
We’re marchin’ with the country in the mornin’!

DO YOUR ALL

EDGAR A. GUEST

From Mr. Guest’s book of war time rhymes, “Over Here.” Published
and copyright, 1918, by The Reilly & Britton Company, Publishers,
Chicago. Special permission to reproduce in this book.

“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.

FLAG OF THE FREE

FRANCIS T. SMITH

IN POPULAR EDUCATOR

Float thou majestically,
Proudly, triumphantly,
Ever protectingly,
Flag of the free.
No foe our faith shall blight
In thy unconquered might,
Emblem of truth and right,
We bow to thee.

As in grim days of yore--
Now on a hostile shore,
Fulfill thy pledge once more,
Red, white and blue.
Long as thy stately bars
And heaven’s reflected stars
Dishonor never mars,
We will be true.

Prove to the waiting world,
When free men are assailed,
Our standard is unfurled
For justice still.
Strengthen us lest we fall,
Inspiring one and all,
Urging thy righteous call,
Under God’s will.

THE SERVICE FLAG

WILLIAM HERSCHELL

IN THE INDIANAPOLIS NEWS

Permission to reproduce in this book

Dear little flag in the window there,
Hung with a tear and a woman’s prayer;
Child of Old Glory, born with a star--
Oh, what a wonderful flag you are!

Blue is your star in its field of white,
Dipped in the red that was born of fight;
Born of the blood that our forbears shed
To raise your mother, the Flag, o’erhead.

And now you’ve come, in this frenzied day,
To speak from a window--to speak and say
“I am the voice of a soldier-son
Gone to be gone till the victory’s won.

“I am the flag of the Service, sir;
The flag of his mother--I speak for her
Who stands by my window and waits and fears,
But hides from the others her unwept tears.

“I am the flag of the wives who wait
For the safe return of a martial mate,
A mate gone forth where the war god thrives
To save from sacrifice other men’s wives.

“I am the flag of the sweethearts true;
The often unthought of--the sisters, too;
I am the flag of a mother’s son
And won’t come down till the victory’s won!”

Dear little flag in the window there,
Hung with a tear and a woman’s prayer;
Child of Old Glory, born with a star--
Oh, what a wonderful flag you are!

A SMALL TOWN SPORT

DAMON RUNYON

IN THE HERALD AND EXAMINER, CHICAGO

In this piece of work Mr. Runyon presents a good specimen of a
large class, a young fellow who was going the trifling way to the
Everlasting Bonfire when the war caught him up and made a man of
him. Thousands of such cases, before the war little better than
waste human material, went out to fight, and found themselves, and
made good, and came home sobered, serious men, worthy to stand
among those to whom the nation’s destinies were confided.

Son o’ ol’ Miz McAuliffe, the widder o’ Box-Car Jack,
An’ ol’ time shack on the Santa Fe, who run to Dodge and back.
He was killed in a wreck at La Junta, and he left the wife and boy--
A kid knee-high to a hop-toad, and tagged by the name o’ Roy.

This Roy was sort o’ onery, and he never would go to school.
He spent the most o’ childhood days in learnin’ the game o’ pool.
His shoulders grew somewhat rounded, and his chest it grew rather thin--
But, gosh, he grew to a marvel at knockin’ them pool balls in!

Pool-shootin’ Roy, we called him, and many a night I’ve set
Watchin’ him clean the table, and puffin’ his cigaret.
Sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and playin’ so ca’m and cool--
If ever a lad was born for a thing, he was born for playin’ this pool!

Fifteen balls was a cinch for him--fifteen balls from the break;
One ball loose from the bunch a bit, and the whole darned rack he’d take.
He was great on a combination, and great on a cut-shot, too--
He’d make those pool balls talk to him when he started handlin’ a cue!

And some of us thought he’d be champeen, but every one didn’t agree,
For Doctor Wilcox wanted to bet he’d die of the old T. B.
But the war it settled the question, for the first of our kids to go
Was Pool-Shootin’ Roy McAuliffe--our poolrooms suffered a blow.

_What is that thing the Frenchmen give to a good game fightin’ boy?
Say it again--the Croix de Guerre? Well, that’s what they give to Roy.
It seems fifteen Germans were on him, and handlin’ him rather mean,
When he got a machine gun to workin’ and pocketed the whole fifteen!_

SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE

LE ROY C. HENDERSON

IN CARTOONS MAGAZINE

Permission to reproduce in this book

She stands alone beside the gate,
Where oft with him she stood before,
And seems to hear his voice relate
Life’s sweetest story o’er and o’er;
A hand she feels upon her own,
Unconsciously a tender glance
She gives, then starts and stands alone,
The lover sleeps--Somewhere in France.

She could have kept him if she would--
His heart and soul were all her own--
But true love knew and understood
That Honor is its own true throne;
She heard the bugles’ blaring sound
And whispered--“Go and take your chance.”
There ’mid the scenes of war he found
Eternal peace--Somewhere in France.

She knows not where that spot may be--
On barren plain, in hidden dell,
On wooded hill, beside the sea--
The lips that would will never tell;
She knows not what his last words were,
The thoughts that come with Death’s advance,
And yet, she feels they were of her,
Those last fond thoughts--Somewhere in France.

THE SERVICE FLAG

J. E. EVANS

IN THE SOVEREIGN VISITOR

Say, pa! What is a service flag?
I see them everywhere.
There’s little stars sewed on them;
What are they doing there?
Sometimes there’s lots of little stars,
And sometimes just a few.
Poor Widow Jones has only one--
I saw her crying, too.

My darling boy, those little stars
Upon a field of white,
Are emblems of our glorious boys
Enrolling for the right.
The border, as you see, is red,
Which represents their blood;
The stars are blue, the heavenly hue;
The white is always good.

Each star you see means some brave boy
Has left his hearth and home
And gone to fight for Freedom’s cause
Wherever he may roam.
So when you see a lot of stars
Lift up your heart with joy,
And when you see a single one
Pray for some mother’s boy.

They go away, those gallant lads,
Across the wreck-strewn sea;
They go to pledge their country’s faith
For God and liberty.

The Stars and Stripes they bear aloft
To join the British flag,
And, with the colors of brave France,
They mean to end “Der Tag.”
And soon, my boy, that service flag,
Born in the nation’s heart,
Will show the world that, when unfurled,
We proudly take our part.

“HEARTS ARE TOUCHING”

Poems need not be rhymed, nor wrought in verses. This brave and touching one occurred in a letter written by a French schoolgirl:

“It was only a little river; almost a brook; it was called the
Yser. One could talk from one side to the other without raising
one’s voice, and the birds could fly over it with one sweep of
their wings. And on the two banks there were millions of men, the
one toward the other, eye to eye. But the distance which separated
them was greater than the stars in the sky; it was the distance
which separates right from injustice.

“The ocean is so vast that the sea gulls do not dare to cross it.
During seven days and seven nights the great steamships of America,
going at full speed, drive through the deep waters before the
lighthouses of France come into view; but from one side to the
other, hearts are touching.”

MEN OF THE BLOOD AND MIRE

DANIEL M. HENDERSON

IN EVERYBODY’S MAGAZINE

Permission to reproduce in this book

We whom the draft rejected;
We who stay by the stuff;
We who measure our manhood
And find that it isn’t enough;
We who are gray and burdened;
We whom the trades require--
Will you permit us to hail you,
Men of the Blood and Mire?

We of the thundering forum;
We of the pen and press;
We who are pouring our utmost
Into our land’s success;
We of the Cross and Triangle,
Lofty in deed and desire--
God, how we shrivel before you,
Men of the Blood and Mire!

Aye, we are square with conscience--
We are reservists all;
Aye, when your ranks are gaping,
We will fight where you fall;
Yet, while we wait, your altar
Flames in the gas and fire--
We are the shade of your glory,
Men of the Blood and Mire!

THE SONG OF THE DEAD

J. H. M. ABBOTT

IN THE LONDON OUTLOOK

Large numbers of Australian and New Zealand volunteers are already
on the water bound for Vancouver, en route for Europe.--Paragraph
of War News, 1915.

Oh, Land of Ours, hear the song we make for you--
Land of yellow wattle bloom, land of smiling Spring--
Hearken to the after words, land of pleasant memories,
Shea-oaks of the shady creeks, hear the song we sing.
For we lie quietly, underneath the lonely hills,
Where the land is silent, where the guns have ceased to boom,
Here we are waiting, and shall wait for Eternity--
Here on the battle-fields, where we found our doom.

Spare not thy pity--Life is strong and fair for you--
City by the waterside, homestead on the plain.
Keep ye remembrance, keep ye a place for us--
So all the bitterness of dying be not vain.
Oh, be ye mindful, mindful of our honor’s name;
Oh, be ye careful of the word ye speak in jest--
For we have bled for you; for we have died for you--
Yea, we have given, we have given our best.

Life that we might have lived, love that we might have loved,
Sorrow of all sorrows, we have drunk thy bitter lees.
Speak thou a word to us, here in our narrow beds--
Word of thy mourning lands beyond the Seas.
Lo, we have paid the price, paid the cost of Victory.
Do not forget, when the rest shall homeward come--
Mother of our childhood, sister of our manhood days,
Loved of our heavy hearts, whom we have left alone.

Hark to the guns--pause and turn, and think of us--
Red was our life’s blood, and heavy was the cost.
But ye have Nationhood, but ye are a people strong--
Oh, have ye love for the brothers ye have lost?
Oh, by the blue skies, clear beyond the mountain tops,
Oh, by the dear, dun plains where we were bred,--
What be your tokens, tokens that ye grieve for us,
Tokens of your Sorrowing for we that be Dead?

THE REFUGEES

W. G. S.

IN THE LONDON SPECTATOR

Past the marching men, where the great road runs,
Out of burning Ypres the pale women came:
One was a widow (listen to the guns!)--
She wheeled a heaped-up barrow. One walked lame
And dragged two little children at her side
Tired and coughing with the dust.
The third
Nestled a dead child on her breast and tried
To suckle him. They never spoke a word.

So they came down along the Ypres road.
A soldier stayed his mirth to watch them pass,
Turned and in silence helped them with their load,
And led them to a field and gave them bread.
I saw them hide their faces in the grass
And cry, as women might when Christ was dead.

SONG OF THE WINDS

MARY LANIER MAGRUDER

IN THE SATURDAY EVENING POST

Permission to reproduce in this book

Song of the west wind whispering--listen
The murmuring waves of the golden grain;
The lisp of rivers that ripple and glisten,
Filled to brim with the night’s wild rain,
Seaward going to come again,
Pouring the torrents of spring on the acres
Fallow and fertile. The wide world’s bread
Harvested now by the busy rakers,
Gleaners afield when the dawn is red;
Wind of the west, where the leaning sheaves
Darken the shadows as daylight leaves
Or heap the granary under the eaves,
Sing the song to us over and over,
Happy harvests and multifold,
Sweeter than breath of thyme or clover,
Western wind over sheaves of gold!

Wind of the south from the wide prairie,
Mesquite barren and cactus lean,
Where the fleet herds browse and the coyote wary
Pierces the night with a note too keen;
And the brown plain’s grass grows all between.
Fields where the wild sage blows and billows,
Purple waves on a sea of jade;
And the bending cottonwoods touch the willows,
And the water holes glimmer in light and shade.
Then swinging up from a land of drouth,
And on by the bayous flowing south,
There by the wandering river’s mouth,
White is the sod with the cotton blossom,
Whiter the lint that has broken its pod
And lies like snow on the sad earth’s bosom,
Fresh and fair from the hand of God.

Wind of the north from the long lakes sweeping
Down to the meadows and hills of corn,
Over the creeks where the perch are leaping,
And the mill wheels hum at the break of morn;
Hills where the clover is newly shorn;
And sharply pungent as old-world gorse is
The hay that the wagons have hurried home;
And under the steady feet of the horses
The furrows grow in the loose black loam.
And ever the amber tassels seize
The wings of every riotous breeze
To fling gonfalons of golden sleaze,
Silken and soft, to the earth’s far borders:
“August heat but hastens the days
When the hungry herds and the empty larders
Shall all be filled with the Indian’s maize.”

Wind of the east--ah, east wind blowing
Long, long leagues from a land o’erseas;
Empty hands that can know no sowing,
Passionate pleading hands are these--
Palms outstretched to us over the seas;
Ah, the heart of France is a thing to cherish!
But her werewolf, Hunger, cannot be slain
Till out of our largess, lest she perish,
We hasten the caravels of blessed grain.
Till the sea-shark’s teeth forever are drawn,
And the dread great guns are stilled at the dawn,
We must hold high courage and carry on.
So winds of the north, south, west, your treasure--
Corn and cattle and golden grain--
Shall crowd the ships to their fullest measure,
And the bread thus cast will return again!

“WHAT THINK YE?”

W. A. BRISCOE

IN THE UNITED EMPIRE MAGAZINE

(Journal of the Royal Colonial Institute, London)

What are we fighting for, men of my race,
And the best of us dying for?
For wealth--or profit--or power--or fame?
Or a statesman’s lust? or a monarch’s name?
Or for aught that our sons of sons could blame
Did we throw the dice of war?

Why are ye weeping, sisters of mine,
With a mien so proud and brave?
Do ye weep because of the utter woe?
Are ye proud because ye would have it so,
Though Fate should have dealt you the final blow
And there’s nothing to mark the grave?

What are we fighting for, women and men,
And the best of us dying for?
It was just because we had signed our name,
And the Briton’s creed is to honor the same:
It was only for that, and our own fair fame
We took up the gage of war.

THE MAN BEHIND

DOUGLAS MALLOCH

IN THE AMERICAN LUMBERMAN

Permission to reproduce in this book

The band is on the quarter-deck, the starry flag unfurled;
The air is mad with music and with cheers.
The ship is bringing home to us the homage of the world
And writing new our name upon the years.
Her officer is on the bridge; we greet him with hurrahs;
But some one says, “Not he the glory won;
Not he alone who wears the braid, deserves the loud applause,
Oh, don’t forget the man behind the gun!”
’Tis said that to embattled seas our ship sailed forth at dawn,
Unheeding shot, unheeding hidden mine;
And through the thunders of the fight went steaming bravely on,
The nation’s floating fortress on the brine.
And never throbbing engine stopped, nor parted plate or seam
In all that bloody day from sun to sun;
The good ship sang her battle cry in hissing clouds of steam
To cheer anew the man behind the gun.
I look upon her shining bore, her engine’s pulsing heart,
I look upon her bulwarks shaped of steel;
I know there is another art, as great as gunner’s art,
That makes the world at arms in homage kneel.
This ship, defying shot and shell, defying winds and seas,
Is fruit of honest labor, rightly done;
The man who built the ship, my lads, remember him, for he’s
The man behind the man behind the gun!

HERE AT VERDUN

CHESTER M. WRIGHT

I stand on a peak at Verdun--a scarred, torn peak of hope and death.

Far under my feet run the mystic passages of Fort Souville.

I strain my eyes to look over a great field where men have swayed in the death lock with eternity.

Ahead and to the right and left stretch fifteen kilometres gaping with wounds, each shell hole a pit of death, a hideous mark left by the scourge of despotism.

Ahead is that foul stretch from which came and still come the hordes of tyranny, with breath of poison and sting of contamination.

Behind is ruin. Never was such ruin. A blight, a torture, a world pain, piercing and cruel.

And yet behind is hope. Behind are the legions of liberty, the soldiers of our children’s freedom.

Behind are the endless legions, coming, coming, coming. Behind are the veteran legions of France and Britain. Behind are the countless legions of America, coming, coming, coming--a brown ribbon of promise stretching across the sea to the shrine of Liberty!

Here where these jagged slashes in the yellow earth have formed a glorious tomb for three hundred thousand gallant French--here is the testing ground of our destiny. Here they have held for us our heritage! Here they have perished in the eternal splendor of self-sacrifice for us! Here is their borderland--and ours!

Here they have written with their ebbing blood the slogan that has thrilled the world--“They shall not pass!”

The gaunt and sinister craters, one merging into the ragged rim of another, the bits of shell, the battered helmets, broken guns, ill-assorted refuse of combat--each shattered particle a marker for some valiant soul “gone west” in service of humanity.

Here, over this land glorified by a nobility of deed than which there has been no more exalted, must our war be waged. Out of this hallowed ground comes the call of those who have given of their best--the call to our great land for Old Glory’s best!

There will come to us wounds that will rack our bodies and drain the coursing blood of our vibrant veins. There will come to us the aching pain of suffering and loss--here on these red fields of France. But we will save our souls and our nation’s soul! And we will save our heritage and give to the billions of the world the right to theirs.

So the brown ribbon of youth winds across the sea--to Verdun and to the long, thin lines on either side. Here will we prove our right to life and liberty!

Brown ribbon of promise!

Hoping, longing, wounded France!

Brown ribbon of youth and high resolve!

Brown ribbon of Liberty!

Here at Verdun!

THE ANXIOUS ANTHEMIST

GUY FORRESTER LEE

IN THE CHICAGO SUNDAY TRIBUNE

Written when the Allied armies were chasing the Germans across the
fields of France and Flanders, in the summer of 1918.

I sit down to write a poem of our fighting men’s renown,
And I scarce get fairly started when they take another town.
A British commentator’s praise I versify, and then
A Frenchman up and multiplies the happy words by ten.
The cable service headlines say the Yankees swat the Hun,
But ere I get a jingle framed they’ve got more on the run.
I’d like to be their Boswell in a khaki-lauding gem,
But darn those doughboys’ peppy hides--I can’t keep up with them!
It tickles me quite some to hear of how they’re spreading Teuts
Around the landscape, and I’ll say their ways and means are beauts;
The Fritzian din of “Kamerad” is drowning out the shells
As U. S. shockers shock the shockers with their own pet hells.
I want the good work to go on, but I have one request
To make of them before they lay the kaiser out to rest,
And that is this: Don’t stop your war; continue till you’ve won,
But kindly take a lay-off till I get this anthem done!

A RIDE IN FRANCE

“O. C. PLATOON”

IN THE MANCHESTER (ENGLAND) GUARDIAN

Trotting the roan horse
Over the meadows,
Purple of thistles,
Purple of clover;
Over the clay-brown path,
All through the grass-lands,
Glory of meadow flowers,
Over! Come over!

* * * * *

On to the highway winding o’er the hill,
White willow-bordered, grassy-banked;
On through a village ruined and broken.
Grass grows in the rubble-heaps,
Poppies fill the courtyards,
Swallows build in broken walls,
And everything is still.

* * * * *

While at the corner--walk, O horse of mine,
A Christ hangs from a crucifix beside a broken shrine.

* * * * *

On to the path at the side of the white road,
Cantering, galloping, breasting the rise;
Any road, every road, each is the right road,
Facing the east, the sun in my eyes.

* * * * *

Trotting the roan horse
Over the meadows,
Purple of thistles,
Purple of clover;
Over the clay-brown path,
Back through the grass-lands,
All through the meadow flowers;
Over! Come over!

THERE WILL BE DREAMS AGAIN

MABEL HILLYER EASTMAN

IN MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

Permission to reproduce in this book

There will be dreams again! The grass will spread
Her velvet verdure over earth’s torn breast;
By ragged shard, half-hid, where rust runs red,
The soaring lark in spring will build her nest.

There will be dreams again! The primrose pale
Will shelter where the belching guns plowed deep;
The trees will whisper, and the nightingale
Chant golden monodies where heroes sleep.

There will be dreams again! The stars look down
On youthful lovers--oh, first love, how sweet!
And men will wed, and childish laughter crown
Life’s awe-compelling miracle complete.

There will be dreams again! Oh, thou forlorn
That crumbling trench or the slow heaving sea
Hath snatched thy dead--oh, pray thee, do not mourn!
There will be dreams--thy loved shall come to thee!

THE BOY NEXT DOOR

S. E. KISER

IN THE SATURDAY EVENING POST

Permission to reproduce in this book

There used to be a boy next door
Whom I often have longed to throttle;
I’ve wished a thousand times and more
That he had died while “on the bottle”!
Oft in the past it has been hard
For me to check my inclination,
When he had cluttered up our yard,
To hand him heavy castigation.

With freckles on his tilted nose
And ears that far in space protruded,
He was not one, as heaven knows,
To whom I in my prayers alluded.
Derisively he showed his tongue
And scorned the warnings which I gave him,
But now I list myself among
The ones who pray the Lord to save him.

How vividly I can recall
Him at the window, making faces;
I used to think that in him all
The impish traits had lurking places.
He stole the green fruit from my trees,
Not caring how it might affect him;
Today he’s fighting overseas,
And may the God of hosts protect him!

From childhood into youth he passed,
And then my little garden flourished;
And still his friendship was not classed
Among the treasures which I nourished.
He tortured first a slide trombone,
And next he tried a squeaky fiddle;
His voice took on a raucous tone
That used to rasp me down the middle.

How soldierly our lad appeared
When with his comrades he departed!
I wonder if he knew I cheered,
Or guessed that I was heavy-hearted.
If I have damned him heretofore
I now retract each foul aspersion;
God bless the boy who lived next door,
And used to be my pet aversion!

THE FLAG

EDWARD A. HORTON

IN POPULAR EDUCATOR

Why do I love our flag? Ask why
Flowers love the sunshine. Or, ask why
The needle turns with eager eye
Toward the great stars in northern sky.

I love Old Glory, for it waved
Where loyal hearts the Union saved.
I love it, since it shelters me
And all most dear, from sea to sea.
I love it, for it bravely flies
In freedom’s cause, ’neath foreign skies.

I love it for its blessed cheer,
Its starry hopes and scorn of fear;
For good achieved and good to be
To us and to humanity.

It is the people’s banner bright,
Forever guiding toward the light;
Foe of the tyrant, friend of right,
God give it leadership and might!

THE WAR HORSE

LIEUT. L. FLEMING, B. E. F., FRANCE

Shortly after the verses here following were received from France
by the American Red Star Animal Relief, Lieutenant Fleming fell in
action. His voice, coming to us as from a plane of life where dumb
creatures do not suffer, is a call to civilization to do its duty
by the animals whose kind were silent heroes of the war.

When the shells are bursting round,
Making craters in the ground,
And the rifle fire’s something awful cruel,
When you ’ear them in the night
(My Gawd! it makes you fight!)
An’ yer thinks of them poor souls agoing ’ome,
When you ’ear the Sergeant shout
“Get y’r respirators out,”
Then you looks and sees a cloud of something white.

The gas is coming on
An’ yer knows before it’s gone
That the ’orse wots with you now won’t be by then;
Yer loves him like yer wife
An’ yer wants to save ’is life,
But there ain’t no respirators, not for them.
I was standing by ’is side
On the night my old ’orse died,
An’ I shan’t forget ’is looks towards the last.
’E was choking mighty bad,
An’ ’is eyes was looking mad,
An’ I seed that--’e--was dying--dying fast.

An’ I want to tell yer ’ow
It’s the ’orses gets us through,
For they strains their blooming ’earts out when they’re pressed.
We was galloping like ’ell
When a bullet ’its old Bill,
I c’d see the blood a-streaming down ’is face.
It ’ad got ’im in the ’ead,
But ’e stuck to it and led
Till we comes to “Action right,”
An’ then ’e fell.

I ’adn’t time to choose
I ’ad to cut ’im loose,
For ’e’d done all ’e c’d afore a gun.
When I looks at ’im again
’E was out of all ’is pain,
An’ I ’opes ’is soul will rest for wot ’e done.
If it ’adn’t been for Bill
We should all ’ave been in ’ell,
For we only got in action just in time.
Ain’t it once occurred to you
Wot the ’orses there go through?
They ’elps to win our fight an’ does it fine.

When ’is blood is flowing ’ot
From a wound what ’e’s just got
An’ ’is breath is coming ’ard an’ short an’ thin,
’E can see the men about,
Getting water dealed out,
But not a drop is brought to comfort ’im;
Tho ’is tongue is parched and dry,
’E can see the water by,
But ’is wounds are left to bleed,
An’ ’e can’t tell us ’is need,
So ’e’s just got to bear ’is pain--an’ think.

There are ’eroes big and small,
But the biggest of them all
Is the ’orse wot lays a-dying on the ground.
’E doesn’t cause no wars,
An’ ’e’s only fighting yours,
An’ ’e gives ’is life for you without a sound.
’E doesn’t get no pay,
Just some oats, and p’r’aps some hay;
If ’e’s killed, no one thinks a bit of ’im.
’E’s just as brave an’ good
As any men wot ever stood,
But there’s mighty little thought or ’elp for ’im.

PARENTHETICALLY SPEAKING.

FROM THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

This delightful whimsy will serve to keep in mind the positively
affectionate exchange of greetings between the late President
Carranza and his friend Wilhelm, when Wilhelm was celebrating what
he did not know was the last glorious birthday in his life.

Oh, Carranza sent a cable-(on the kaiser’s birthday) gram
To the kaiser there at Pots-(that’s a German palace) dam,
And it said, “Look out for Uncle (that’s my northern neighbor) Sam,
For he’s coming after you!”

Then the kaiser waved his iron (as the papers have it) hand,
And he danced a little sara-(that’s a Turkish tango) band,
And he said: “I’m safe in Heli-(in the German sea) goland,
But I thank my friend Carranza.”

WORLD SERIES OPENED--BATTER UP!

IN THE STARS AND STRIPES, A. E. F., FRANCE

The outfield is a-creepin’ in to catch the kaiser’s pop,
And here’s a southpaw twirler with a lot of vim and hop!
He’s tossed the horsehide far away to plug the hand-grenade;

What matter if on muddy grounds this game of war is played?
He’ll last through extra innings and he’ll hit as well as pitch;
His smoking Texas leaguers’ll make the Fritzies seek the ditch!

He’s just about to groove it toward a ducking Fritzie’s bean;
His crossfire is the puzzlingest that ever yet was seen;
His spittle is a deadly thing; his little inshoot curve
Will graze some Heinie’s heaving ribs and make him lose his nerve.

Up in the air he never goes; he always cuts the plate,
No matter if the bleachers rise and start “The Hymn of Hate;”
And pacifistic coaching never once has got his goat.
Just watch him heave across the top the latest Yankee note!

The Boches claim the Umpire is a-sidin’ with their nine,
But we are not the boobs to fall for such a phony line;
We know the game is fair and square, decisions on the level;
The only boost the kaiser gets is from his pal, The Devil!

The series now is opened, and the band begins to play;
The batteries are warming up; the crowd shouts, “Hip-Hurray!”
The catcher is a-wingin’ ’em to second, third and first,
And if a Heinie tries to steal, he’s sure to get the worst.

So watch the southpaw twirler in his uniform O. D.
Retire to the players’ bench the Boches--one, two, three!
He’ll never walk a bloomin’ one, nor let ’em hit it out.
Just watch him make ’em fan the air and put the Hun to rout!

EDITH CAVELL

MCLANDBURGH WILSON

From Miss Wilson’s book entitled “The Little Flag On Main Street,”
published and copyright, 1917, by The Macmillan Company, New York.
Special permission to insert in this book.

On law and love and mercy
Was laid the German curse
When to her execution
Was led the British nurse.

In brutal might they thought her
Of help and friendship shorn;
John Brown, Jeanne d’Arc, all martyrs,
Companioned her that morn.

A harmless, tender woman,
They took her to her doom;
A dread, resistless spirit
She rises from the tomb.

Still Germany shall fear her,
For since that bloody dawn
Through all the earth that trembles
Her soul goes marching on!

TO SERVE IS TO GAIN

CHARLES H. MACKINTOSH

IN LOGGING, DULUTH

“He profits most who serves us best!”
Let each who labors, lives and dies
Beneath these star-bespangled skies
Go write that motto on his breast!

“He profits most”--Here is no call
To selfish ease or sordid gain;
Who serves himself will serve in vain;
Who profits most must serve us all.

And he has most who gives the most,
Since what is kept can but decay
--And Death still treads his sleepless way
Among our myriad human host.

THEY SHALL RETURN

J. LEWIS MILLIGAN

IN THE TORONTO GLOBE

They shall return when the wars are over,
When battles are memories dim and far;
Where guns now stand shall be corn and clover,
Flowers shall bloom where the blood-drops are.

They shall return with laughing faces,
Limbs that are lithe and hearts new-born;
Yea, we shall see them in old home-places,
Lovelier yet in the light of morn.

“TO THE IRISH DEAD”

BY ESSEX EVANS

The author of these heart-touching lines is a Queenslander of Welsh
derivation. Sir Herbert Warren, K. C. V. O., of the University of
Oxford, had this to say of him and of the Toast: “They say that no
one but an Irishman understands Ireland, that she will listen to no
one but an Irishman. Wales is near to her in geography and in race.
I have thought she perhaps might listen to a Welsh voice. She has
one today, now whispering, now ringing, across St. George’s
Channel. Will she heed it? Who knows?”

Tis a green isle set in a silver water,
A fairy isle where the shamrock grows,
Land of Legend, the Dream-Queen’s daughter--
Out of the Fairies’ hands she rose.
They touched her harp with a tender sighing,
A spirit-song from a world afar,
They touched her heart with a fire undying
To fight and follow her battle-star.

Too long, too long thro’ the grey years growing
Feud and faction have swept between
The thistledown and the red rose blowing,
And the three-fold leaf of the shamrock green;
But the seal of blood, ye shall break it never:
With rifles grounded and bare of head
We drink to the dead who live forever--
A silent toast--To the Irish dead!

VISION

DOROTHY PAUL

IN THE SATURDAY EVENING POST

Permission to reproduce in this book

Above the broken walls the apple boughs
Are murmurous with bees;
Again the slumbrous breeze
Eddies the snow of drifted chestnut flowers,
And little ruffling winds go silverly
Along the poplar trees.
They never speak of it to me,
My comrades. Awkward-kind
I hear their voices roughen and grow dumb,
Remembering I am blind--
But through the dark, I know--I know the spring has come
To France!

What matter I’ll not see beneath the wheat
Red poppies burn again;
The gleam of April rain
Along the boulevards; the flower girls
With mignonette and pinks and clematis;
Not see again the Seine
Slip under the silver bridges to Rouen?
Ah, no; nor see
The pale gold smile of buttercups, that glorifies
Gray ruins with bravery
Heartbreaking, valiant--the smile that lights the eyes
Of France!

For through the sightless mercy of my days
White visions come to me--
Beyond the dark I see.
Not this worn, steadfast France, wan, gallant, spent,
With eyes burned haggard by the spirit of the Maid
And Charlotte of Normandy--
But France triumphant, high of heart,
Smiling through throbbing drums
On Rheims restored, Nancy, Alsace, Lorraine,
In that new spring that comes--
The spring we halt and blind and dead bring back again
To France!

RAIN ON YOUR OLD TIN HAT

LIEUT. J. H. WICKERSHAM

Written at the battle front in France and sent to his mother, Mrs.
W. E. Damon. Lieutenant Wickersham was killed in action September
14, 1918.

The mist hangs low and quiet on a ragged line of hills,
There’s a whispering of wind across the flat;
You’d be feeling kind of lonesome if it wasn’t for one thing--
The patter of the raindrops on your old tin hat.

An’ you just can’t help a-figuring--sitting here alone--
About this war and hero stuff and that,
And you wonder if they haven’t sort of got things twisted up,
While the rain keeps up its patter on your old tin hat.

When you step off with the outfit to do your little bit,
You’re simply doing what you’re s’posed to do--
And you don’t take time to figure what you gain or what you lose,
It’s the spirit of the game that brings you through.

But back at home she’s waiting, writing cheerful little notes,
And every night she offers up a prayer
And just keeps on a-hoping that her soldier boy is safe--
The mother of the boy who’s over there.

And, fellows, she’s the hero of this great big ugly war,
And her prayer is on that wind across the flat;
And don’t you reckon maybe it’s her tears, and not the rain,
That’s keeping up the patter on your old tin hat?

THE ARMED LINER

H. SMALLEY SARSON

IN THE POETRY REVIEW

The dull gray paint of war
Covering the shining brass and gleaming decks
That once re-echoed to the steps of youth.
That was before
The storms of destiny made ghastly wrecks
Of peace, the Right of Truth.
Impromptu dances, colored lights and laughter,
Lovers watching the phosphorescent waves,
Now gaping guns, a whistling shell; and after
So many wandering graves.

THERE ARE CROCUSES AT NOTTINGHAM

WRITTEN IN THE TRENCHES

Flanders, spring of 1917. Authorship unknown.

Out here the dogs of war run loose,
Their whipper-in is Death;
Across the spoilt and battered fields
We hear their sobbing breath.
The fields where grew the living corn
Are heavy with our dead;
Yet still the fields at home are green
And I have heard it said:
That--
There are crocuses at Nottingham!
Wild crocuses at Nottingham!
Blue crocuses at Nottingham!
Though here the grass is red.

There are little girls at Nottingham
Who do not dread the boche,
Young girls at school at Nottingham
(Lord! how I need a wash!)
There are little boys at Nottingham
Who never hear a gun;
There are silly fools at Nottingham
Who think we’re here for fun.
When--
There are crocuses at Nottingham!
Young crocus buds at Nottingham!
Thousands of buds at Nottingham
Ungathered by the Hun.

But here we trample down the grass
Into a purple slime;
There lives no tree to give the birds
House room in pairing time.
We live in holes, like cellar rats,
But through the noise and smell
I often see those crocuses
Of which the people tell.
Why--
There are crocuses at Nottingham!
Bright crocuses at Nottingham!
Real crocuses at Nottingham!
Because we’re here in Hell.

THE WAR ROSARY

NELLIE HURST

IN THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE

I knit, I knit, I pray, I pray.
My knitting is my rosary.
And as I weave the stitches gray,
I murmur pray’rs continually.
Gray loop, a sigh, gray knot, a wish,
Gray row a chain of wistful pray’r,
For thus to sit and knit and pray--
This is of war the woman’s share.

And so I knit, and thus I pray,
And keep repeating night and day,
May God lead safely those dear feet
That soon shall wear the web of gray.
Now and again a selfish strain?
But surely woman heart must yearn,
And pray sometimes that she may hear
The footsteps that return.

But if, O God, Not that.
But if it must be sacrifice complete,
Then I will trust that afterward
Thou wilt guide home those precious feet.

WHEN PRIVATE MUGRUMS PARLEY VOOS

PVT. CHARLES DIVINE

IN THE STARS AND STRIPES, A.E.F., FRANCE

I can count my francs an’ santeems--
If I’ve got a basket near--
An’ I speak a wicked “bon jour,”
But the verbs are awful queer,
An’ I lose a lot o’ pronouns
When I try to talk to you,
For your eyes are so bewitchin’
I forget to parlay voo.

In your pretty little garden,
With the bench beside the wall,
An’ the sunshine on the asters,
An’ the purple phlox so tall,
I should like to whisper secrets
But my language goes askew--
With the second person plural
For the old familiar “too.”

In your pretty little garden
I could always say “juh tame,”
But it ain’t so very subtle,
An’ it ain’t not quite the same
As “You’ve got some dandy earrings,”
Or “Your eyes are nice an’ brown”--
But my adjectives get manly
Right before a lady noun.

Those infinitives perplex me;
I can say you’re “tray jolee,”
But beyond that simple statement
All my tenses don’t agree.
I can make the Boche “comprenney”
When I meet ’em in a trench,
But the softer things escape me
When I try to yap in French.

In your pretty little garden
Darn the idioms that dance
On your tongue so sweet and rapid,
Ah, they hold me in a trance!
Though I stutter an’ I stammer,
In your garden, on the bench,
Yet my heart is writin’ poems
When I talk to you in French.

MULES