Part 5

The rivers of France all quietly take To sleep in the house of their birth, But the carnadined wave of five shall break On the uttermost strands of Earth.

Five rivers of France, see their names are writ On a banner of crimson and gold, And the glory of those who fashioned it Shall nevermore cease to be told.

JUST THINKING

HUDSON HAWLEY

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

Standin’ up here on the fire-step, Lookin’ ahead in the mist, With a tin hat over your ivory And a rifle clutched in your fist; Waitin’ and watchin’ and wond’rin’ If the Hun’s comin’ over tonight-- Say, aren’t the things you think of Enough to give you a fright?

Things you ain’t even thought of For a couple o’ months or more; Things that ’ull set you laughin’, Things that ’ull make you sore; Things that you saw in the movies, Things that you saw on the street, Things that you’re really proud of Things that are--not so sweet;

Debts that are past collectin’, Stories you hear and forget, Ball games and birthday parties, Hours of drill in the wet; Headlines, recruitin’ posters, Sunset ’way out at sea, Evenings of pay-days--golly-- It’s a queer thing, this memory!

Faces of pals in Homeburg, Voices of womenfolk, Verses you learnt in schooldays Pop up in the mist and smoke As you stand there grippin’ that rifle, A-starin’, and chilled to the bone, Wonderin’ and wonderin’ and wonderin’, Just thinkin’ there--all alone:

When will the war be over? When will the gang break through? What will the U. S. look like? What will there be to do? Where will the Boches be then? Who will have married Nell? When’s the relief a-comin’ up?-- Gosh! But this thinkin’s hell!

THE EVENING STAR

HAROLD SETON

IN THE CHICAGO EVENING POST

The evening star a child espied, The one star in the sky. “Is that God’s service flag?” he cried, And waited for reply.

The mother paused a moment ere She told the little one-- “Yes, that is why the star is there! God gave His only Son!”

COLUMBIA’S PRAYER

THOMAS P. BASHAW

IN THE HERALD AND EXAMINER, CHICAGO

Permission to reproduce in this book

Boy in khaki, boy in blue, I am watching over you, Going forth amid the rattle Of the drums that call to battle.

Oft have men waged fight for me, Fought to make their brothers free; God protect and succor you, Boy in khaki, boy in blue.

God go with you on your mission, And in His all-wise decision Turn this tide of war to you, Boy in khaki, boy in blue.

With the Stars and Stripes high o’er you, Snatch the vic’try just before you, Heaven keep, encompass you, Boy in khaki, boy in blue.

When the foe is rent asunder, And the world looks on in wonder, Paying tribute rare to you, Boy in khaki, boy in blue,

God return you safe to me; To Columbia--Liberty; ’Tis my prayer, my hope for you, Boy in khaki, boy in blue.

TWO VIEWPOINTS

AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR

OF THE VIGILANTES

Permission to reproduce in this book.

A German soldier in his journal wrote:

He was a French Boy Scout--a little lad No bigger than my Hansel. He refused To tell if any of his countrymen Were hidden thereabout. Fifty yards on We ran into an ambush. Well, of course We shot him--little fool! Poor little fool! Thinking himself a hero as he stood Facing our guns, so little and so young Against the sunny vineyard-green, I thought What wasted courage! for the child was brave, Fool as he was. The pity ...

Here there came A sudden shrapnel, and the writing stopped....

_Did I write that? O God--did I write that? Mine--they were mine, the folly and the waste. Now the keen edge of death has cut away The eyelids of my soul and I must bear The perfect understanding of the dead. Now that I know myself as I am known, How shall my soul endure Eternity? God, God, if there be pity left for me, Send to my son the child that I despised A messenger to burn into his soul While still he lives, the truth I died to learn!_

DESTROYERS

“KLAXON”

IN BLACKWOODS MAGAZINE

Through the dark night And the fury of battle Pass the destroyers in showers of spray. As the Wolf-pack to the flank of the cattle, We shall close in on them--shadows of gray. In from ahead, Through shell-flashes red, We shall come down to them, after the Day, Whistle and crash Of salvo and volley Round us and into us as we attack Light on our target they’ll flash in their folly, Splitting our ears with shrapnel-crack. Fire as they will, We’ll come to them still, Roar as they may at us--Back--Go Back! White though the sea To the shell-splashes foaming, We shall be there at the death of the Hun. Only we pray for a star in the gloaming (Light for torpedoes and none for a gun). Lord--of Thy Grace Make it a race, Over the sea with the night to run.

NINETEEN-SEVENTEEN

SUSAN HOOKER WHITMAN

IN THE KANSAS CITY STAR

“It is long since knighthood was in flower, There are no men today who tower Above their kind--the knights are dust, Their names forgot, their good swords rust,” We idly say. And yet, in truth-- The brave soul has eternal youth, Like the great lighthouse rising free, Whose far-flung beams guide ships at sea, God lifts above his fellow man A steadfast soul to dare and plan, A king of men, by right divine, Who in his forehead bears the sign-- He walks along the city street; Unknowing, in the fields we meet A modern knight in whose hand lies A mighty Nation’s destinies.

Then say no more, the knights are gone; Honor and Truth and Right live on, And men today would keep the bridge Horatius kept--from rocky ridge Heroic Youth would still fling down His horse, himself, to save the town. Columbia calls! Off with your hats and lift them high, Our own, our sons are passing by.

THE SILENT ARMY.

IAN ADANAC

IN THE MONTREAL DAILY STAR

No bugle is blown, no roll of drums, No sound of an army marching. No banners wave high, no battle-cry Comes from the war-worn fields where they lie, The blue sky overarching. The call sounds clearer than the bugle call From this silent, dreamless army. “No cowards were we, when we heard the call, For freedom we grudged not to give our all,” Is the call from the silent army.

Hushed and quiet and still they lie, This silent, dreamless army, While living comrades spring to their side, And the bugle-call and the battle-cry Are heard as dreamer and dreamless lie Under the stars of the arching sky, The men who have heard from the men who have died The call of the silent army.

THE SOURCE OF NEWS

FROM THE NEEDLE

Absolute knowledge I have none, But my aunt’s washerwoman’s son Heard a policeman on his beat Say to a laborer in the street That he had a letter just last week, Written in the finest Greek, From a Chinese coolie in Timbuctoo, Who said the niggers in Cuba knew Of a colored man in a Texas town Who got it straight from a circus clown, That a man in Klondike heard the news From a gang of South American Jews, About somebody in Bamboo Who heard a man who claimed he knew Of a swell society female rake Whose mother-in-law will undertake To prove that her husband’s sister’s niece Has stated in a printed piece That she has a son who has a friend Who knows when the war is going to end.

TO MY SON

A poem, anonymous, sent to the Chicago Evening Post by one whose son’s regiment was leaving for France.

My son, at last the fateful day has come For us to part. The hours have nearly run. May God return you safe to land and home; Yet, what God wills, so may His will be done.

Draw tight the belt about your slender frame; Flash blue your eyes! Hold high your proud young head! Today you march in Liberty’s fair name, To save the line enriched by France’s dead!

I would not it were otherwise. And yet ’Tis hard to speed your marching forth, my son! ’Tis doubly hard to live without regret For love unsaid, and kindnesses undone.

But would the chance were mine with you to stand Upon those shores and see our flag unfurled! To fight on France’s brave, unconquered land With Liberty’s great sword for all the world!

Beyond the waves, my son, the siren calls, The sky is black and Fastnet lies abreast; A signal rocket flings its stars and falls Across the night to welcome England’s guest.

When mid the scud you see the Cornish lights, And through the mist you hear faint Devon chimes, Thank God for memories of those other nights And days on other ships in happier times.

Perhaps you’ll stand within the pillared nave And aisles where colored sundust falls, and see Old Canterbury Church where Becket gave His life’s best blood for England’s liberty!

Some night you’ll walk, perhaps, on Salisbury plain; Above Stonehenge the Druid’s stars still sleep, And on the turf within the circled fane Beneath the autumn moon still lie the sheep.

And if you march beside some Kentish hedge, And blackberries hang thick clustered o’er the ways, Pluck down a branch! Rest by the road’s brown edge; Eat! Nor forget our last vacation days!

And then the trench in battle-scarred Lorraine; The town half burned but held in spite of hell; The bridge twice taken, lost, and won again; The cratered glacis ripped with mine and shell.

The leafless trees, bare-branched in spite of June; The sodden road, the desolated plain; The mateless birds, the season out of tune; Fair France, at bay, is calling through her pain.

Oh, son! My son! God keep you safe and free-- Our flag and you! But if the hour must come To choose at last ’twixt self and liberty-- We’ll close our eyes! So let God’s will be done!

EASTER-EGGS

REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN

From this author’s “Our Navy at Work,” published by the Bobbs-Merrill Co. In 1917, our Government took over a large number of pleasure-yachts, fitted them with a few light guns and depth-charges and sent them into French waters to hunt submarines. They were variously known as “The Suicide Fleet” and “Easter-Eggs.” Mr. Kauffman spent some time at sea with them. Permission to reproduce in this book.

Now, Mr. Wall of Wall St., he built himself a yacht, And he built that yacht for comfort and for speed; He didn’t mean that it should go Beyond a hundred miles or so; He wanted something made for show, Where he could drink and feed.

Then Uncle Sam’l went to war and hadn’t any boats, Or not enough to guard the stormy green, And so he said to Mr. Wall: “I’ll take your six-feet-over-all And set it out to get the call Upon the submarine.”

“A cruising-fighter? Never!” (The experts chorused that.) “She’ll sink before she’s half-way out to France”; But Sam cut out her bathtubs white, He painted her a perfect fright And loaded her with dynamite; Says he: “I’ll take a chance.”

“Good-night!” said Wall of Wall St.; the experts said it, too; But Uncle Sam was sot and sibylline; His little plan, it warn’t a josh: Wall’s boat ’s as dry ’s a mackintosh; She fights, b’ gum; what’s more, b’ gosh, She gits the submarine!

A DIRGE

VICTOR PEROWNE

IN THE LONDON TIMES

Thou art no longer here, No longer shall we see thy face. But, in that other place, Where may be heard The roar of the world rushing down the wantways of the stars; And the silver bars Of heaven’s gate Shine soft and clear: Thou mayest wait.

No longer shall we see Thee walking in the crowded streets, But where the ocean of the Future beats Against the flood-gates of the Present, swirling to this earth,

Another birth Thou mayest have; Another Arcady May thee receive. Not here thou dost remain, Thou art gone far away, Where, at the portals of the day, The hours ever dance in ring, a silvern-footed throng,

While time looks on, And seraphs stand Choiring an endless strain On either hand.

Thou canst return no more; Not as the happy time of spring Comes after winter burgeoning On wood and wold in folds of living green, for thou art dead.

Our tears we shed In vain, for thou Dost pace another shore, Untroubled now.

THE WOMAN’S GAME

AUTHORSHIP NOT KNOWN

Was there ever a game we did not share, Brother of mine? Or a day when I did not play you fair, Brother of mine? “As good as a boy,” you used to say, And I was as eager for the fray, And as loath to cheat or to run away, Brother of mine!

You are playing the game that is straight and true, Brother of mine, And I’d give my soul to stand next to you, Brother of mine. The spirit, indeed, is still the same; I would not shrink from the battle’s flame, Yet here I stay--at the woman’s game, Brother of mine!

If the last price must needs be paid, Brother of mine, You will go forward, unafraid, Brother of mine. Death can so small a part destroy, You will have known the fuller joy-- Ah! would that I had been born a boy, Brother of mine!

A FLEMISH VILLAGE

H. A.

IN LONDON SPECTATOR

Gone is the spire that slept for centuries, Whose image in the water, calm and low, Was mingled with the lilies green and snow, And lost itself in river mysteries. The church lies broken near the fallen spire; For here, among these old and human things Death swept along the street with feet of fire, And went upon his way with moaning wings. Above the cluster of these homes forlorn, Where giant fleeces of the shells are rolled, O’er pavements by the kneeling herdsmen worn, The wounded saints look out to see their fold.

And silence follows fast, no evening peace, But leaden stillness, when the thunder wanes, Haunting the slender branches of the trees, And settling low upon the listless plains.

FRANCE

CAPT. JOSEPH MEDILL PATTERSON

IN THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

From the French of Armentier Ohanian

Permission to reproduce in this book

I was an exile from my own country and wandered over the breast of the world seeking another country.

And I came into a land where there was only a long spring and a long autumn, where they did not know the deadly heats of our summers or the mortal colds of our mountains. Among the vines and sunny fields I saw the people of this land at work, ever young of soul, smiling, loving, and kindly.

I asked, “What is the name of this happy place?”

And the answer was, “France the voluptuous.”

I came to towns of splendid monuments, of harmonious buildings, of proud triumphal arches of the past, and above always I saw the spires of great cathedrals stretching toward the sky, as if to seize upon the feet of God.

I asked, “What is the name of this marvelous land?”

And the answer was, “France the glorious.”

I advanced again, when I was struck by the red color of a large river.... It was a river of warm blood that rolled down from afar in thick and heavy waves. I advanced again. Before me dark clouds of smoke hid the endless sky above huge fields of warriors in battle; when these died smiling at death others took their places, singing.

I asked, “What is the name of this chivalrous land?”

And the answer was, “France the courageous.”

At last I came to an immense city, of which I saw neither the beginning nor the end, a city full of sumptuous palaces, of parks, and fountains. The sun glistened on the marble of the streets and kissed the serene, resigned faces of women clothed in black. The chimes of churches filled the air with solemn sounds, and words, until then unknown to me, “Te Deum,” came from the throats of thousands of thousands.

With respect I asked, “What is the name of this land that mourns?”

And the answer was, “France the victorious.”

I kissed the earth of this land and said, “I have found my country, who was an exile.”

THE CLERK

B. H. M. HETHERINGTON

IN THE LONDON BOOKMAN

Perched upon an office stool, neatly adding figures, With cuffs gone shiny and a pen behind his ear; Deep in Liabilities, Goods and Double Entry, So he worked from year to year.

Diligent and careful, hedged about with figures, Given soul and body to discount and per cent; Bounded by the columns of Purchase Book and Journal, Soberly his moments went.

Now his pen has ceased from adding rows of figures, Ceased from ruling ledgers and entering amounts: Clad in sodden khaki, with a gun in Flanders He is balancing accounts.

POILU

STEUART M. EMERY, A. E. F.

IN THE STARS AND STRIPES

The traditional friendship between the United States and France was recemented under the fire of German guns. In France they celebrated our Fourth of July; in this country, we celebrated the Fourteenth of July, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastile. Yank and Poilu are brothers in war, don’t mind the languages. The inextinguishable humor of France never showed more quaintly than in that word, “Poilu.” It means “unshaven.” More freely, “a man who needs a shave.” A whimsical comment upon the French soldier’s way of letting his beard grow while he is in the field. Those boys were like the English and our own. They smiled at misery. They were good old sports, bless ’em!

You’re a funny fellow, poilu, in your dinky little cap And your war worn, faded uniform of blue, With your multitude of haversacks abulge from heel to flap And your rifle that is most as big as you. You were made for love and laughter, for good wine and merry song, Now your sunlit world has sadly gone astray, And the road today you travel stretches rough and red and long, Yet you make it, petit soldat, brave and gay.

Though you live within the shadow, fagged and hungry half the while, And your days and nights are racking in the line, There is nothing under heaven that can take away your smile, Oh, so wistful, and so patient and so fine. You are tender as a woman with the tiny ones who crowd To upraise their lips and for your kisses pout, Still, we’d hate to have to face you when the bugle’s sounding loud And your slim, steel sweetheart Rosalie is out.

You’re devoted to mustaches which you twirl with such an air O’er a cigarette with nigh an inch to run, And quite often you are noticed in a beard that’s full of hair, But that heart of yours is always twenty-one. No, you do not “parlee English,” and you find it very hard, For you want to chum with us and words you lack; So you pat us on the shoulder and say, “Nous sommes camarades.” We are that, my poilu pal, to hell and back!

AUSTRALIA’S MEN

DOROTHEA MACKELLAR

Miss Mackellar is the daughter of Sir Charles Mackellar, Chairman of the Bank of New South Wales. Acknowledgment is due Dr. George Cooke-Adams, formerly an officer in the Australian naval forces, through whose courtesy her verses are presented here.

There are some that go for love of a fight And some for love of a land, And some for a dream of the world set free Which they barely understand.

A dream of the world set free from Hate-- But splendidly, one and all, Danger they drink as ’twere wine of Life And jest as they reel and fall.

Clean aims, rare faculties, strength and youth, They have poured them freely forth For the sake of the sun-steeped land they left And the far green isle in the north.

What can we do to be worthy of them, Now hearts are breaking for pride? Give comfort at least to the wounded men And the kin of the man that died.

TANKS

O. C. A. CHILD

Yes, back at home I used to drive a tram; And Sammy, there, he was a driver, too-- He used to ride his racer--did Sir Sam; While pokey London streets was all I knew.

But now, His Nibs and I, of equal rank, Are chummy as the paper and the wall, Each tooling of a caterpillar tank, Each waiting on the blest old bugle call.

Say! Tanks are sport--when you get used to them, They’re like a blooming railroad, self-contained; They lay their tracks, as you might say--pro tem, And pick ’em up, and there’s good distance gained.

They roar across rough country like a gale, They lean against a house and push it down, They’re like a baby fortress under sail, And antic as a three-ring circus clown.

Sam says they’re slow. They may seem so to him-- They can’t show fancy mile-a-minute stuff, But when they charge, in armored fighting trim, You bet the Germans find ’em fast enough!

Now Sam and I are waiting, side by side, To steam across yon farm-land in the night; We’ll take their blamed barbed wire in our strides And stamp a German trench line out of sight.

A HYMN OF FREEDOM

MARY PERRY KING

IN COLLIER’S WEEKLY

Permission to reproduce in this book

“Unfurl the flag of Freedom, Fling far the bugle blast! There comes a sound of marching From out the mighty past. Let every peak and valley Take up the valiant cry: Where, beautiful as morning, Our banner cuts the sky.

Free born to peace and justice, We stand to guard and save The liberty of manhood, The faith our fathers gave. Then soar aloft, Old Glory, And tell the waiting breeze No law but Right and Mercy Shall rule the Seven Seas.

No hate is in our anger, No vengeance in our wrath, We hold the line of freedom Across the tyrant’s path. Where’er oppression vaunteth We loose the sword once more To stay the feet of conquest, And pray an end of war.

SWAN SONGS

More than all the others put together, the war poems of Alan Seeger, Lieutenant Colonel McCrae, and Lieut. Rupert Brooke, have touched and thrilled the heart of America. They are quiet, earnest, yet more powerful than trumpet blasts, for they rise triumphant from great depths, and as they sing, exalt.

Most familiar is our own Alan Seeger’s “I Have a Rendezvous with Death.” He was studying in Paris when the war broke out. In the third week he enlisted in the Foreign Legion. Two arduous years later he was called on higher service. July 4, 1916, his squad was caught in an assault on the village of Belloy-en-Santerre, where the Germans received them with the fire of six machine guns. Seeger was severely wounded, but went forward with the others, and helped take the place. Next morning he died. He had kept the tryst.

* * * * *

Alan Seeger was a New York boy. He was born in that city June 22, 1888. In his short life he had written some twenty poems. This was his last. It was written in camp, shortly before his call came:

I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH[1]