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