Military Songs of War

The Statue of Liberty

SING of the Venus de Milo,
The lady without any arms;
Sing of the Venus of this and of that,
And tell of their marvelous charms:
Rave of your wonderful statues,
In divers lands here o’er the sea,
In bushnels and reams, but the Girl of our Dreams
Is our godmother, Miss Liberty.

Its contour may not be perfection—
Its technique we really don’t know—
If you ever asked, “Who was the artist?”
It would come as terrible blow.
But to us it is home, friends and Country,
To us it means all that is best,
‘Tis the first that lifts out of the waters
Of “Our little Gray Home in the West.”

‘Tis the first on that endless horizon
Where the clouds meet the wind driven spume,
And the scavenger gulls wing to greet us
From out the gathering gloom—
‘Tis the first that calls beckoning to us
Through the mist of the swaggering sea—
“Oh lay down your guns my knight-errant sons,
And come back to the bosom of me.”

Embarkation Home

IF you’re homebound soldier
Who’s done his little best,
And you are going ‘board the boat
At St. Nazaire or Brest,
Bordeaux or any other port,
Steam-up and headed west:

If you are full o’ the joy o’ life
And “pep” and all that stuff;
And the ozone permeates your soul
And makes you gay and bluff,
Don’t turn and yell, “Who won the War?—
The M Ps,”—Can that guff.

For the M Ps are a sacred caste
That boss the city street
A hundred miles behind the Lines
Where dangers never greet,
Nor roaming shells come swirling by,
Nor surging first waves meet.

So if the long, tense session
Of soul-engulfing war,
And “Prussian” discipline and rule,
And heart-enslaving law
Say, “Open wide the throttle
Of lung and throat and jaw”—

Repress that natural impulse,
For you’re not human—yet:
Sedately up the gangplank walk,
Eyes front and lips tight set,
Or you’ll come back and spend six weeks
In a mud-dump, nice and wet.

The wind is blowing ‘cross the bow,
The first smoke lags alee—
The sun that’s broken through the clouds
Is dancing on the sea,
So, homebound soldier, watch your step,
And take advise from me.

Two Worlds

HERE in the Jardin des Plantes of Nantes
I sit in the flickering shade,
Watching the scampering children play—
And the way of a man and a maid—
And the noble women of France in the black
Of a Nation unafraid.

The lace of the shadows across the paths
Where the warm sun filters through,
And the open vista between the trees,
With the swan pond half in view,
And the flowers and sloping lawns and the pines
‘Neath an arch of Brittany’s blue.

The air is soft as a day in June,
The blossoms manifold
Throw streaks and patches of rainbow hue
Across the green and gold,
And earth and sky in withchery
Entwine you in their hold.

And it comes to me, Can it really be
But two full moons have fled,
Since I limped from a scarred and riven field
Where lay the newly dead,
Bathed in the light of a splendid fight,
And blotched with their blood’s own red.

A world of crimson slaughter
Where the grim locked legions away—
And the mad machine guns whistle
Their endless roundelay—
And the sinister sound of the thundering pound
Of the great guns night and day.

Night and day, night and day,
With scarce a pause between,
As out of the empty dark a voice
From the farthest hills unseen,
Comes whirling, swirling, shrieking down
Where the helpless front lines lean.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The air is soft as a morn in June—
The filmy shadows sway;
And only the joyous music
Of the prattle of children at play,
And the gentle rustle of whispering leaves
That tell of the closing day.