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
C. FOX SMITH
IN LONDON PUNCH
Reproduced by special permission of the Proprietors of “Punch”
I never would ’ave done it if I’d known what it would be.
I thought it meant promotion and some extra pay for me;
I thought I’d miss a drill or two with packs an’ trenchin’ tools,
So I said I’d ’andled horses--an’ they set me ’andlin’ mules.
Now ’orses they are ’orses, but a mule, ’e is a mule
(Bit o’ devil, bit o’ monkey, bit o’ bloomin’ boundin’ fool!)
Oh, I’m usin’ all the adjectives I didn’t learn at school
On the prancin’, glancin’, rag-time dancin’ army transport mule.
If I’d been Father Noah when the cargo walked aboard,
I’d ’ave let the bears an’ tigers in, an’ never spoke a word;
But I’d ’ave shoved a placard out to say the ’ouse was full,
An’ shut the ark up suddent when I saw the army mule.
They buck you off when ridden, they squish your leg when led;
They’re mostly sittin’ on their tail or standing on their ’ead;
They reach their yellow grinders out an’ gently chew your ear,
An’ their necks is indiarubber for attackin’ in the rear.
They’re as mincin’ when they’re ’appy as a ladies’ ridin’ school,
But when the fancy takes ’em they’re like nothin’ but a mule--
With the off wheels in the gutter an’ the near wheels in the air,
An’ a leg across the traces, an’ the driver Lord knows where.
They’re ’orrid in the stables, they’re worse upon the road;
They’ll bolt with any rider, they’ll jib with any load;
But soon we’re bound beyond the seas, an’ when we cross the foam
I don’t care where we go to if we leaves the mules at ’ome.
For ’orses they are ’orses, but a mule ’e is a mule
(Bit o’ devil, bit o’ monkey, bit o’ bloomin’ boundin’ fool!)
Oh, I’m usin’ all the adjectives I never learnt at school
On the rampin’, rawboned, cast-steel-jawboned army transport mule.
AN APRIL SONG
GEORGE C. MICHAEL, LANCE CORPORAL, R. E.
(Written on leave at Stratford-on-Avon.)
Orchard land! Orchard land!
Damson blossom, primrose bloom:
Avon, like a silver band
Winds from Stratford down to Broome:
All the orchards simmer white
For an April day’s delight:
We have risen in our might,
Left this land we love, to fight,
Fighting still, that these may stand,
Orchard land! Orchard land!
Running stream! Running stream!
Ruddy tench and silver perch:
Shakespeare loved the water’s gleam
Sparkling on by Welford church:
Water fay meets woodland gnome
Where the silver eddies foam
Thro’ the richly scented loam:
We are fain to see our home,
See again thy silver gleam,
Running stream! Running stream!
Silver throats! Silver throats!
Piping blackbird, trilling thrush:
Shakespeare heard your merry notes;
Still you herald morning’s blush:
You shall sing your anthems grand
When we’ve finished what He planned.
God will hear and understand.
God will give us back our land
Where the water-lily floats,
Silver throats! Silver throats!
A SONG OF THE AIR
GORDON ALCHIN
From “Oxford and Flanders.” B. H. Blackwell, Publishers, Oxford,
England. Special permission to reproduce in this book.
This is the song of the Plane--
The creaking, shrieking plane,
The throbbing, sobbing plane,
And the moaning, groaning wires:--
The engine--missing again!
One cylinder never fires!
Hey ho! for the Plane!
This is the song of the Man--
The driving, striving man,
The chosen, frozen man:--
The pilot, the man-at-the-wheel,
Whose limit is all that he can,
And beyond, if the need is real!
Hey ho! for the Man!
This is the song of the Gun--
The muttering, stuttering gun,
The maddening, gladdening gun:--
That chuckles with evil glee
At the last, long drive of the Hun,
With its end in eternity!
Hey ho! for the Gun!
This is the song of the Air--
The lifting, drifting air,
The eddying, steadying air,
The wine of its limitless space:--
May it nerve us at last to dare
Even death with undaunted face!
Hey ho! for the Air!
VICTORY!
S. J. DUNCAN-CLARK
IN THE CHICAGO EVENING POST, NOVEMBER 11, 1918
Permission to reproduce in this book
Out of the night it leaped the seas--
The four long years of night!
“The foe is beaten to his knees,
And triumph crowns the fight!”
It sweeps the world from shore to shore,
By wave and wind ’tis flung,
It grows into a mighty roar
Of siren, bell and tongue.
Where little peoples knelt in fear,
They stand in joy today;
The hour of their redemption here,
Their feet on Freedom’s way.
The kings and kaisers flee their doom,
Fall bloody crown and throne!
Room for the people! Room! Make room!
They march to claim their own!
Now God be praised we lived to see
His Sun of Justice rise,
His Sun of Righteous Liberty,
To gladden all our skies!
And God be praised for those who died,
Whate’er their clime or breed,
Who, fighting bravely side by side,
A world from thraldom freed!
And God be praised for those who, spite
Of woundings sore and deep,
Survive to see the Cause of Right
O’er all its barriers sweep!
God and the people--This our cry!
O, God, thy peace we sing!
The peace that comes through victory,
And dwells where Thou art King.
THE HOMECOMING
LEROY FOLGE
Grief for a brother, an American who was killed in France, brought
about the suicide of the author of this poem. The manuscript was
found beside his body. The lines were published in THE CHICAGO
TRIBUNE.
His regiment came home today,
But Jim, old Jim, he’s still away.
I know, I know, he’s sleeping there
Out on the fields of France somewhere.
And yet, I stood out in the rain,
To watch the boys come home again,
Just wishing that it wasn’t true,
And that Jim would be coming, too.
Yet, all the while, I knew, I knew--
Old Jim, he’s gone. They tell me how
He fell against the Huns, and now,
He’s gained a sort of dignity
That somehow seems could never be;
For Jim, he was so gay and free,
With never a thought of greater weight
Than just to keep an evening date,
Or get some cigarets, perhaps,
Or shoot a game or two of craps,
Or dance all night, then drive all day
His roadster down the speeding way.
But, now, Jim’s gone, the folks will say,
He was a wonder in his day.
Old Jim--he wasn’t old, you know--
I say that for I love him so--
Grew up with me, and he and I
Would never let a day go by
That I did not see some plan begun
In which we both would have some fun.
And then, there comes that fateful day,
When our men go to join the fray;
And Jim can go, but I must stay.
“Good-by, old top, if I’m not dead,
I’ll give the Kaiser hell,” he said.
I think he meant it, but--. Oh, well,
He didn’t give the Kaiser hell.
Folks always said that Jim was light,
And stayed out much too late at night,
Frivolous and never would,
Whatever else he did, make good.
Why, no one ever thought to take
Jim seriously, the reckless rake!
But when the time to charge had come,
Jim left the trench, along with some
More daring chaps, and crawling, spanned
The hell that they call “No Man’s Land.”
They cut the tangled wires away,
Then our men charged, but there Jim lay--
What is it that the Scriptures say
About the chap that offers up
His all, and drinks the bitter cup--
That’s how I like to think of Jim,
The glory that is left of him.
THE CROWN
HELEN COMBES
IN LESLIE’S WEEKLY
Write us your verse, oh, soldier, tell us the grim, red tale,
Learned on the field of battle, where bullets fell like hail.
Pen us the ghastly story, of thousands of slaughtered men,
Till our souls are sick with horror. And then, oh, soldier, then,
Tell us in tender accents, how men with hearts of gold
Succored their wounded brothers; stripped in the biting cold
To cover the dead and dying. Give us our faith again,
Our belief in a God Almighty, in a Brotherhood of Man.
Paint us a canvas, soldier, a picture of fire and flame!
Men, mad with the lust of killing, playing their grisly game!
Show us the dead-strewn hillsides, guarding the blood-drenched plain,
A picture of war’s grim horrors. And then, oh, soldier, then,
Draw us the white-capped nurses, doctors with skilful hands,
Counting their lives as nothing when human need demands
All that they have to offer. Paint us the women and men
Who bring the joy of living back to our hearts again.
Sing us a song, oh, soldier, chant in a martial strain,
Those who have died in battle, those who come home again.
Call us the mothers of heroes, call us the mothers of men,
Till our hearts are torn and bleeding. And then, oh, soldier, then,
Play us in minor cadence, a harp with a tautened string,
Set to a heavenly music, the songs the angels sing,
Of a world by Love safeguarded, where wars shall ever cease,
Sing us at last oh, soldier, the Song of Eternal Peace.
OUR SOLDIER DEAD
ANNETTE KOHN
IN NEW YORK TIMES
Permission to reproduce in this book
“In Flanders fields, where poppies blow,”
In France where beauteous roses grow,
There let them rest--forever sleep,
While we eternal vigil keep
With our heart’s love--with our soul’s pray’r,
For all our Fallen “Over There.”
The sounding sea between us rolls
And in perpetual requiem tolls--
Three thousand miles of cheerless space
Lie ’twixt us and their resting place;
’Twas God who took them by the hand
And left them in the stranger land.
The earth is sacred where they fell--
Forever on it lies the spell
Of hero deeds in Freedom’s cause,
And men unborn shall come and pause
To say a prayer, or bow the head,
So leave these graves to hold their dead.
Let not our sighing nor our tears
Fall on them through the coming years
Who on the land, on sea, in air,
With dauntless courage everywhere,
Their homes and country glorified--
Stood to their arms and smiling died.
Great France will leave no need nor room
That we place flowers on their tomb--
And proudly o’er their resting place,
Will float forever in its grace,
O’er cross, and star, and symbol tag,
Their own beloved country’s flag.
The morning sun will gild with light,
The stars keep holy watch at night,
The winter spread soft pall of snow,
The summer flowers about them grow,
The sweet birds sing their springtime call
God’s love and mercy guard them all.
LET THERE BE LIGHT!
RUTH WRIGHT KAUFFMAN
IN THE RED CROSS MAGAZINE
Permission to reproduce in this book
Black with the blackness of hell and despair
Village and village and village lay there;
Never a candle and never a lamp--
Four hundred miles of the enemies’ camp.
Trains of munitions that creak with their loads,
Supplies, horses, soldiers engulfed by the roads;
An ambulance crawling, a password, and then
Through the shell-shattered houses the marching of men.
Black with the blackness of wounds and of death
The villages huddled there holding their breath;
Black--till there rang this new order to “Cease”--
“It is over!--all over!--the war!--_there is peace!_
Come, dance on the ruins--Look, No Man’s Land there,
“Verboten” for years, is a world’s thoroughfare;
And village and village, remember the night,
But turn it to day--and let there be light.
The sorrow unburied, destruction--how much!
Four hundred long miles for the taper to touch!
The shades are undrawn, the lamps shining bright;
It is dawn in the darkness; again There Is Light!
THE PRESENT BATTLE-FIELD
WRIGHT FIELD
IN THE STARS AND STRIPES
The war is over, over there,
And Peace has made her bow--
But the Battle of Verdun is on
At Jenkins’ Corners now!
All’s still along the rippling Somme,
Likewise at Belleau Wood--
But the Jenkins’ Corners Battle now
Is merely going good!
Now beaten into plowshares are
The swords once dripping wet
With human gore--but Heinies fall
At Jenkins’ Corners yet!
The smoke of cannon floats away
In France, a fading cloud--
But the war at Jenkins’ Corners is
Attracting quite a crowd!
Pop Snider had a navvy there,
And old Zeke Wade a son,
And since the boys are home again,
They’ve waded in like fun.
The checker-board is moved away,
A gas-mask takes its place;
The floor is neatly sanded, so
The campaign they may trace.
Pop Snider knows what he’d have done,
And Zekiel has his say
On where they made the great mistake
And nearly lost the day.
They fight it o’er from A to Z,
And slay full many a Hun--
For out at Jenkins’ Corners now
The war is just begun!
NOVEMBER ELEVENTH
ELIZABETH HANLY
IN POPULAR EDUCATOR
A thousand whistles break the bonds of sleep
With swift exultant summons wild and shrill;
Impassioned tongues of flames toward heaven leap
To tell us peace has come. The guns are still.
A thousand flags have blossomed in the air
Like poppies in a garden by the sea.
Beyond the eastern hills a golden flare
Foretells the day that broke on Calvary.
Long-darkened Liberty uplifts once more
Her torch on Belgium, Poland and Alsace
And Flanders--on each desecrated shore,
Slow dawns the sun; and on my mother’s face
The look, I think, that Mary must have worn
In Galilee on Resurrection morn.
OLD JIM
NORMAN SHANNON HALL
IN THE STARS AND STRIPES
Permission to reproduce in this book
Out in that vague, vast “somewhere” of The Line
They killed Old Jim, a proven friend of mine.
Killed him at night, while he was on patrol;
All the company found was just a hole
A damned boche shell had dug out where he’d gone.
The outfit passed the place just after dawn
And saw some bodies; but they couldn’t tell
Which one was which. They all were smashed to hell!
They put Jim on the list, “Reported Dead”;
“Missing in Action,” the home papers said.
I wasn’t in The Line when Jim went out.
A piece of shrapnel had hit me a clout
Which kept me pretty quiet for a while--
Gray days when it was mighty hard to smile.
And when I learned Old Jim had topped the ridge
I fell to thinking what a privilege
It was to know him. Jim was just the kind
That stops to pet a dog or help the blind.
The sort you turn to when things don’t go right,
And then forget when all the world is bright.
Jim had a kindly eye that seemed to see
The best in men. What could he see in me?
I never knew; but Jim was always glad
To give me half of everything he had.
That’s why, you see, it cut me mighty deep
To know Old Jim was Out There--in a heap.
I’ve said Old Jim was not identified.
All the outfit ever knew was--he died!
And though there is no way to prove it’s so
This Unknown Soldier is Old Jim. I know!
The Congress Medal and the D. S. C.,
Have been given this Lost Identity;
And knowing that they both were earned by him,
I know the Unknown Soldier is--Old Jim!
THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER ARMISTICE DAY AT ARLINGTON
GRANTLAND RICE
IN THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE
Permission to reproduce in this book
The wind to-day is full of ghosts with ghostly bugles blowing,
Where shadows steal across the world, as silent as the dew.
Where golden youth is yellow dust, by haunted rivers flowing
Through valleys where the crosses grow, as harvest wheat is growing,
And only dead men see the line that passes in review.
The gripping clay once more gives way before the Mighty Mother
Who waits with everlasting arms to guard her sleeping sons.
And lonely mates in silent fields call out to one another
The story of an empty grave, where each has lost a brother,
Who takes the long, long trail at last beyond the rusting guns.
Gently the east wind brought him home to meet the south wind sighing.
Softly the north wind breathes his name that none of us may know.
For only those who fell with him, out in the darkness lying,
Can tell his company or rank, and they are unreplying,
As each dreams on through summer dawns or mantling snow.
Nameless--and yet how gallantly he faced the roaring thunder
Where names were less than star-dust as the crashing steel swept by
To take its endless toll of those the night squad spaded under,
Clod upon clod, beneath the sod that time alone may sunder,
Held where the wind-blown grasses stir beneath an alien sky.
He’ll miss, perhaps, the poppy blooms that sway above the clover,
But rose-red wreaths of Arlington bend low above his dreams.
The reveille at dawn is done, the slogging hikes are over,
Where out the friendly lanes of home, a gay and careless rover,
His wild, free spirit seeks the hills and haunts the singing streams.
No more he moves by Meuse or Aisne, some shell-swept river wading,
No marching orders call him from his rough-hewn granite grave.
And when at dusk we hear far off the eerie drum-taps fading,
What hallowed spot holds more than this, with spectral lines parading
Blood of our blood, dust of our dust, “the ashes of our brave”?
There will be tears from watching eyes, where rain and mist are blended,
There will be heartache in the lines where gold-starred mothers wait.
But where the great shells fall no more, what vision is more splendid
Than peace along the once-scarred fields, the last red battle ended,
Peace that he helped to bring again above the twilight gate?
Let valor’s minstrel voices sing his fame for future pages,
But when the starless darkness comes and the long silence creeps,
When blossom mists of spring return or winter torrent rages,
Write this above his nameless dust, to last beyond the ages,
“Safe in the Mighty Mother’s arms an Unknown Soldier sleeps.”
EPITAPH FOR THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER
ANNETTE KOHN
IN THE WASHINGTON STAR
Permission to reproduce in this book
Within this nation-hallowed tomb
An unknown soldier lies asleep,
Symbolic comrade of all those
Who, on the land, on sea, in air,
In that red death across the seas,
Sealed with their blood the sacred truths
For which our country ever stands:
That righteousness is all the law--
That justice is true government--
Man’s liberty the gift of God.
In memory of the faith they kept,
Here through the ages all the land
As honor guard on watch will stand!
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
Above the broken walls the apple boughs, 181
Absolute knowledge I have none, 86
Across the sands by Mary’s well, 47
Against the shabby house I pass each day, 111
A little grimy-fingered girl, 43
Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Austrian heir-apparent, 137
A thousand whistles break the bonds of sleep, 198
Athwart that land of bloss’ming vine, 65
Black with the blackness of hell and despair, 196
Bosun’s whistle piping, “Starboard watch is on”;, 18
Boy in khaki, boy in blue, 82
By all the glories of the day, 13
By blazing homes, through forests torn, 70
Click, click! how the needles go, 128
Come! Says the drum, 67
Come shake hands, my little peach blossom, 76
Dear little flag in the window there, 154
Down in the street, with a lilting swing, 108
Down toward the deep-blue water, marching to throb of drum, 112
“Do your bit!” How cheap and trite, 152
’E’s a sportsman is our Padre, 36
Far and near, high and clear, 106
Flag of our Faith: lead on--, 40
Float thou majestically, proudly, triumphantly, 153
Franceline rose in the dawning gray, 139
God, the Master Pilot, 68
Gone is the spire that slept for centuries, 92
Hail and farewell, 126
Hail, banner of our holy faith, 45
Hear the guns, hear the guns!, 134
He profits most who serves us best!, 179
Here in the long white ward I stand, 14
Here’s to the Blue of the wind-swept North, 41
He was a French Boy Scout--a little lad, 83
He woke: the clank and racket of the train, 121
His regiment came home today, 192
Ho! Heimdal sounds the Gjallar-horn:, 21
I can count my francs an’ santeems, 186
I enlisted in the infantry last summer;, 141
If I should die, think only this of me:, 102
I have a conversation book; I brought it out from home, 19
I have a rendezvous with Death, 99
I hear the throbbing music down the lanes of Afric rain:, 42
I knit, I knit, I pray, I pray, 185
I never would ’ave done it if I’d known what it would be, 187
In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow, 101
In Flanders fields, where poppies blow, 195
In this last hour, before the bugles blare, 120
I saw the spires of Oxford, 114
I sit down to write a poem of our fighting men’s renown, 169
I stand on a peak at Verdun--a scarred, torn peak of hope and death, 167
It is long since knighthood was in flower, 85
It is portentous, and a thing of state, 144
I tried to be a doughboy, but they said my feet were flat, 143
It’s a high-falutin’ title they have handed us;, 44
It’s Spring at home; I know the signs--, 123
It was high midsummer and the sun was shining strong, 34
It was only a little river; almost a brook;, 159
It was thick with Prussian troopers, it was foul with German guns, 29
I’ve heard a half a dozen times, 113
I was an exile from my own country, 93
I wonder what the trees will say, 118
Just for a “scrap of paper,”, 24
Leave me alone here, proudly, with my dead, 132
Left! Left! Had a good girl when I Left! Left, 71
Let us praise God for the Dead: the Dead who died in our cause, 119
’Mid blinding rain this inky night, 74
Mike Dillon was a doughboy, 61
My heart is numb with sorrow;, 51
My house that I so soon shall own, 110
My name is Danny Bloomer and my age is eighty-three, 75
My son, at last the fateful day has come, 87
Never a Serbian flower shall bloom, 50
No beauty could escape his loving eyes, 14
No bugle is blown, no roll of drums, 86
No Man’s Land is an eerie sight, 16
Not with vain tears, when we’re beyond the sun, 102
Now, Mr. Wall of Wall St., he built himself a yacht, 89
O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear, 109
Oh, Carranza sent a cable-(on the kaiser’s birthday) gram, 176
Oh, Land of Ours, hear the song we make for you--, 161
Oh, the General with his epaulets, leadin’ a parade;, 37
Oh ye whose hearts are resonant, and ring to War’s romance, 146
One star for all she had, 116
On law and love and mercy, 178
On the battlefields of Flanders men have blessed you in their pain, 69
Orchard land! Orchard land!, 189
Our little hour--how swift it flies--, 103
Out here the dogs of war run loose, 184
Out in that vague vast “somewhere” of The Line, 199
Out of the night it leaped the seas, 191
Outside the ancient city’s gate, 48
Over thousands of miles, 53
Pardon! he has no Engleesh, heem, 73
Past the marching men, where the great road runs, 162
Perched upon an office stool, neatly adding figures, 94
Poppies in the wheat fields on the pleasant hills of France, 25
Ribbons of white in the flag of our land, 105
Saint Genevieve, whose sleepless watch, 20
Say, pa! What is a service flag?, 158
She stands alone beside the gate, 157
She wasn’t much to brag about, she wasn’t much to see, 30
Some day the fields of Flanders shall bloom in peace again, 129
Somewhere is music from the linnets’ bills, 104
Song of the west wind whispering--listen, 163
Son o’ ol’ Miz McAuliffe, the widder o’ Box-Car Jack, 155
Standin’ up here on the fire-step, 80
Still breaks the Holy morn, to soothe the care, 117
Straight thinking, Straight talking, 57
Suddenly one day the last ill shall fall away, 151
Summer comes and summer goes, 72
Thank God, our liberating lance, 46
The band is on the quarter-deck, the starry flag unfurled;, 166
The Colonel has a job to do, 32
The dull gray paint of war, 183
The evening star a child espied, 81
The herdman wandering by the lonely rills, 27
The Kid has gone to the Colors, 23
The Kings are dying! In blood and flame, 145
The little home paper comes to me, 15
The magpies in Picardy, 130
The mist hangs low and quiet on a ragged line of hills, 182
The nightingales of Flanders, 50
The old flag is a-doin’ her very level best, 151
The Old Gang on the Corner! What an arrant tribe they were, 64
The outfield is a-creepin’ in to catch the kaiser’s pop, 177
The rivers of France are ten score and twain, 79
The sick man said: “I pray I shall not die, 133
The soldier boys are marching, are marching past my door;, 78
The star upon their service flag has changed to gleaming gold:, 17
The sunny streets of Oxford, 115
The war is over, over there, 197
The wind today is full of ghosts with ghostly bugles blowing, 200
There are some that go for love of a fight, 96
There is a hill in England, 60