EN REPOS

WHEN you join the Ambulance,
You have visions of a dance
    With the obus, mitrailleuse, and aero bomb;
You expect a time exciting,
Being always where there's fighting,
    Where the big attack is always on the go;
But before you do your bit
You will lean the truth of it ---
    It's not the front that's deadly,
                But repos!

            En repos! En repos!
Oh, you're always in the bushes en repos!
Just evacuation work
Which you'd always rather shirk,
    And fatigue and other nuisances well known;
You forever cool your heels
In those endless poker deals,
    Or talk around the stove for hours on end;
It's a sleepy, deadly life---
You'd much rather have the strife
    Than existence where Dame Rumor
    Is the only thing that's rife;
The front is hell, you know,
But you'd always rather go
    Toward the trenches and the star-shells
                Than repos !

When the blessés come in thick,
And you have to take them quick
    From the "poste" to "opital" and back for more;
When you get the needed sleep
And you're in it good and deep,
    And a call comes in, and out again you go;
Then you have your fill of it,
But it's better than to sit
                En repos!

        En repos! En repos!
Back again to some dead village en repos!
Oh, it looks good from the front
When you have to hear the brunt
    Of the blessés when they're going o'er the top;
When they start a big attack
And the wounded stream on back,
    Oh, you wish for all the rest you ever got;
But when you re in the rear
And the front is nowhere near
    And the noise of "beaucoup argument"
    Is all the noise you hear ---
Oh, it's those times that you know
That you 'd really rather go
    Toward the trenches and the star-shells
                Than repos!

                ENVOI

There's a line of trenches stretching
    From the Swiss land to the sea,
And there's many torn and wounded
    And there 's work for you and me.
So we daily wait for orders
    Which will say, ere long, we know,
That we're headed toward the trenches
    And the star-shells ---
                Off repos!

        A DUFFER'S DUFFLE

A TANGLED mess of shirts and socks,
Underwear, shoe-strings, neckties and stocks,
A bottle of something heaved in by chance,
All wrapped up in a pair of pants.
A U.S. "unie" that would n't fit,
A knitted sweater that came unknit,
Stamps and envelopes, paper and books,
Flea-powder (spilled), some pins and hooks,
A pair of shoes, a cake of soap,
A rubber basin, a coil of rope,
A pack of cards, and some dirty puttees,
One of those dog-goned diaries,
Postcards, a briquet a poilu made,
The stock of a German hand-grenade,
A copy of President Wilson's speech,
Some stuff at the bottom I couldn't reach-
All of it tumbled in wild confusion,
Bought in a moment of mad delusion;
Junk that isn't worth while to drag---
The duffle in my duffle-bagl

            BRANCARDIERS

I USED to think that stretcher-bearers
    Had a soft and easy life ---
That they could always keep away
    From all the hell and strife.
But now I've seen the work they do,
    And all the risks they run,
I'll hand them more for service than
    The man who packs a gun.
Oh, it 's no easy job to care
    For blessés and for morts,
But for all their work's so rotten,
    They're a dead game bunch of sports.

They may not have to charge the Boche
    Or hold a trench somewhere,
But when there's any work to do
    They always are right there.
When hell is popping at the front,
    And shells are flopping fast,
They're on the job, and stick it out
    Until the row is past.
It's not a pleasant job they've got,
    With blessés and with morts,
But for all they're not the fighters,
    They're a dead game bunch of sports.

When all are in the abris, and
    The shells are falling thick,
And a 'phone call says there 's wounded
    They go out without a kick.
And if they're shelling still, they just
    Pull down their lids of tin,
And go where the poor devil fell,
    And try to bring him in.
Oh, more than once it's happened
    They're themselves among the morts---
But they grin and shrug their shoulders,
    Like a dead game bunch of sports.

It's not a joyous job to go
    Out into No Man's Land,
But when there's wounded, they are there
    To try and lend a hand.
Their job most always takes them where
    There's been a lot of harm,
And the obus 's no respecter of
    The red cross on the arm.
Their job is endless, nasty work,
    But they don't get out of sorts,
And the fighters all respect 'em,
    As they re fearless, dead game sports

            CONVOY

THERE 'S a lure in the summer landscape
    When we've done our work at the line,
When we've finished with gas and bullets,
    And the obus' drawn-out whine.
It's then that the Highways start calling,
    And the greening fields of France,
And the yearning is strong to go rolling along
    In a convoy of Ambulance.

So crank the voitures up, my boys!
    Make the old line twenty long;
Let the Flivver staff car lead it
    And the camion tail the throng.
Then, as grey car follows grey car,
    We will roll off free and gay,
In convoy, in convoy,
    Down along the Grand Highway!

When we're up at the front on duty,
    We work as the wounded come in;
And it's not a life the most pleasant
    To see wrecks where humans have been;
We like our repos --- when we get it,
    And to go on permission we're strong;
But there's nothing so fine as to be in a line
    Of a convoy that's rolling along!

So crank the voitures up, my boys!
    Throw in your kit and trunk,
And to Henry's well-known rattle
    We'll tour off with all our junk;
Let each grey car follow grey car
    To some distant town in France
In a convoy, in a convoy,
    Of the care-free Ambulance!

                    COMPRENDS PAS

I 'VE struggled hard with phrase-books and with grammars on the side,
And to parlez-vous with poilus most consistently I've tried,
    Till I thought I spieled the lingo of the land;
But I haven't learned a sentence or an idiomatic phrase
That could get you out of trouble (you get in in lots of ways)
    Like the statement that you did n't understand.

If, departing on permission, you should make the silly break
To get in a first-class carriage (which a private should nt take)
    Where the ticket-man explains you should n't takee;
And the train is bound for Biarritz instead of Aix-les-Bains---
Talk in English, or don't even argue with the man,
    Just look stupid and inform him, "Pas compris."

If in traffic you 're caught doubling along a route gardée,
Or you wish to pass a sentry when you're strolling round some day,
    Don't explain---you'll get in trouble if you try;
Hide your learning if you've got it, for all cases such as this
Are the times, the saying has it, when our ignorance is bliss,
    And a simple "Pas compris" will get you by.

If I ever "travel west" and find I'm waiting at the gate
Of Heaven, and Saint Peter asks me why the hell I'm late,
    Force of habit will dictate my swift reply;
For I'm certain that his language will be foreign --- anyway
To such as me---and so I'll take a risky chance and say
    A hurried " Comprends pas" and skid on by.

                POST-MORTEMS

EXCITEMENT, one thinks, would be the life
Of the soldier in France mixed up in the strife;
He 's continually pictured amid the shells,
Enduring fifteen kinds of hells---
Camion men, and ambulanceers,
Air pilots, tank men, and engineers---
All are supposed, both day and night,
To be mixed up in some sort of fight---
Advancing, attacking, making a raid,
Or dashing through shell-fire to give first aid.
If we'd been in the places they've pictured its in,
We'd all long since have been deader than sin.
After your first excitement is through
You get mighty fed up, and nothing is new;
And it's then you resort, just to drive off the bore,
In those stove-side post-mortems about the war.
    .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

How you came over, new at the task;
The foolish questions you used to ask;
The time you tinkered a hand-grenade
And were such a damn fool that you were nt afraid!
Your letters home, those greenhorn crimes,
(Each one published in the Spuncksville Times,)
Your first trip up to the Poste de Secours,
The shell whose explosion was premature
The night that the Boches shelled the road,
When a shell lit ahead, but did not explode
The dangerous cross-roads, where every day
The shells got some one going that way;
The big attack, Boche souvenirs,
The insipid taste of all French beers;
The time you broke down with a heavy load
Just where the guns fired across the road
The car that was smashed, and the abris, too, ---
In fact all of the shells that came near you;
Atrocities, speeches, Wilson's note,
How the people at home are off the boat;
Gas-shells, machine guns, the sausage balloon,
Whether the war will be over soon:
What of the Kaiser? --- Is he afraid
Of what will happen with U. S. aid?
Paschendaele, Ypres, and scrap on the Aisne,
What happened last spring to the big campaign ;
Why the English at Cambrai nearly got beat,
The Italian fiasco, the big retreat---

Any old topic's as good as new
When passed out again for a stove review;
Life is a rehash, day by day,
The same old stuff in a different way.
We're tired of war, and want it done,
Englishman, Frenchman, Dago, Hun,.
But it still goes on, in its own sweet way,
No matter what any one seems to say.
And so we keep going, and stave off the bore
By our stove-side post-mortems about the war

                    "SYSTEM D"

THIS war is for "morals" we often are told,
    It develops our honor and right;
It 's a "soulful uplifter," it "brings out the best,"
    It leads us from "darkness to light";
But all of this talk about morals and such
    Is compromised some, you will see
By that prevalent habit of take it or nab it
    That is called by the French
                    "System D."

When up at the front on some duty or ether
    And there 's nothing to do and you snooze,
And some passing poilu, paid five sous a day,
    Drops in and departs with your shoes;
When your essence is stolen, or cooks sell your pinard
    To the poilus who want a cheap spree,
Though perhaps not delighted, you don't get excited
    It's part of the game---
                    "System D."

When your tools are all taken, you do not report it,
    But tap some one else's full set;
When the Lieut takes your coal, you just take a reprisal,
     (The kitchen's a pretty good bet
And so it goes on, from the General down
    And adjusts itself quite equally,
This uplift of war-time, this shoplift of no crime,
    This good moral game ---
                    "System D!"

SONG OF THE MESSENGERS OF MERCY

OH, the Ambulance is a lazy life,
    The life of a care-free crew
That fritters away a lot of its time
    With nothing whatever to do.
But it isn't as easy as you might think
    To drive a Ford in France,
For the Ambulance Service sure is hard---
    On the seats of the government pants.

Yes, a care-free crew is the Ambulance ---
    We love to do as we please;
We take our pleasures in generous measures
    Despite the strict M. P's.
We re a humanitarian bunch of bums,
    And it certainly seems a crime
That ambulance non-combatants
    Should be always killing time.

Oh, half of the time we curse our luck
    Because we're back en repos,
But we get our fill of the dirty work
    When up to the front we go.
Oh, we travel about in the rear of the front
    And squander our monthly pay,
And all that we care a damn about
    Is our three square meals a day.

Yes, a care-free crew is the Ambulance ---
    We love to do as we please;
But we grouse and growl and raise a howl
    If we cannot take our ease.
Each Ambulance man thinks he ought to be
    In some other branch of the war,
And we crab like hell when we know blame well
    That we're well off where we are.

Oh, the Ambulance man is a humane bird
    Who comes from across the sea;
He comes, as he thinks, with avowed intent
    To rescue Humanity.
But he soon determines that he can best
    Diminish the Prussian pull,
If he simply devotes his efforts to
    Preserving his human self.

Yes, a care-free crew is the Ambulance,
    With materialistic views;
We 've dropped our illusions and foolish delusions
    And taken to foreign booze;
The Ambulance man's sole object now
    Is the greatest amount of fun,
And he's trying to save for the Land of the Brave
    A worthless Son- Of A-Gun.!

            WE WISH IT WOULD

WHENEVER the topics of talk run low,
    Whenever the lull in the chatter comes.
When you think there 's a dam in the usual flow
    Of fruitless bull --- some one succumbs,
    And soberly lets this phrase descend,
     "When do you think the war will end?"

The men on the steamers that ride the foam
    The camion drivers, or camionnette;
The letters that come from the folks at home
    And even the "Madame" in the buvette;
    They carry a burden of this one trend --
    "When do you think the war will end?"

You pick up a poilu along the route
    Who asks for a lift toward the first-line trench,
And above the clatter you bear him shout
    Some words you can't get with your palsied French
    No need to tell him you "don't comprend," ---
    It's "When du you think the war will end?"

Every one airily states his views
    At length --- till you wish that he would be hung;
Every one asks it---and none refuse---
    The foolishest question that ever was sprung.
    And before I forget it, my reader friend,
    When do you think the war will end?

            COMMUNIQUÉS

    EACH Government, most every day,
    Prints a brief communiqué
Concerning activities in the war,
Explaining the ends we're fighting for
But I've discovered, what is more ---
    You can't believe a word they say.

    Our sector, just the other day,
    Got very active in a way;
The shell-holes 'round our abri door
Were multiplied by several score ---
A dangerous factor to ignore,
    And yet ---"Rien à signaler!"

    Last night a Boche without a qualm
    Let fall near camp a noisy bomb
That blew a building all to whey.
"That sure was awful," you will say,
But hark to the communiqué, ---
    It says, "The night was calm."

    Such things as these make one feel sore,
    Make you regret to shed your gore ---
I guess I'll quit and go away
Unless in some communiqué
A little notice they should pay
    To what I 'm doing in the war!

        AROUND OUR STOVE

AROUND our barracks stove at night
    We are mighty careless what see say;
If anything's not done up right,
We'd do it better by a sight,
    If we could only have our way,
        Around our stove.

All discipline that's ever tried
    We're always ready to resent;
We give our officers a ride
To take the sparkle off their pride
    Or else we cuss the Government,
        Around our stove.

Around our stove we make a fuss
    About the risky things we've done;
Or else pick flaws in some poor cuss ---
Tell what we'd done, if it was us.
    Why, battles have been lost and won
        Around our stove!

You 'd think a crowd of anarchists
    Had gathered, were you passing by,
Or pugilistic pacifists,
And not plain amb'lance motorists,
    For, mon Dieu, how the bull does fly
        Around our stove!

                CAVE ABRIS

WHEN I first came to France and went out to the front
    I was crazy to get in the midst of the fighting;
I'd volunteer always for any old stunt,
    And I never once thought of allezing or liting;
I then had much scorn for the caves and abris --
    I preferred to be out where the obus were popping
But now that I know they're most like to hit me,
    I pike for the abri without ever stopping.

The abri, the abri, we go on the run,
We don't want to be targets for any Boche gun;
We dive from our cars, and we thank all our stars
We've an abri deep down that is safe from the Hun!

It's not as heroic, or handsome, or brave
    As to stand 'mid the shells with a lit cigarette;
But we really prefer it to six feet of grave---
    For that's about all, for your stunts, you will get;
If they're shelling a road --- well, you have to go through it,
    Though you 're scared till you're green, and you think you are done;
But, finished your work, you don't stick 'round to view it
    You make for the abri upon a dead run!

The abri, the abri, allez when you're done;
We don't want to get friendly with any Boche gun;
Take away your citations, and fine decorations---
Just give us an abri that's safe from the Hun!

        AND WINTER 'S COMING!

WHEN I hit France, a Service man
    Said wisely unto me,
"You've only got two blankets there-
    Go buy another three."
"In summer? " I said with surprise
     "Why, sure," he said, "it's cold."
I thought him crazy, but I bought,
    And shoved across my gold.
Well, summer came, the days were warm,
    But oh, Good Lord, the nights!
For feeling cold the Arctic zone
    Had nothing--- they were frights!
With blankets five, at 3 AM.
    I'd feel stark frozen dead.
There was no warmth in Rue Rayuouard's
    Pet acrobatic bed.
There, frozen stiff, I 'd lie and think
    Of what he said to me,
And wonder why that ---- ---- fool
    Had only told me three!

     THE WAR---ENCORE!

WE'VE fought the battles of this war
    A thousand times---each little fight
Has caused the stove-side bull to flow
    From early dawn to late at night;
From every phase and point of view
    We've talked the business o'er and o'er;
We've guessed what Ludendorf would do,
    Told how we d work it, ---me and you.
We thought we had it all down right,
    And yet last night, once more.
        We settled the war

We've figured how it could be won
    By either side, and picked the point
We've brought up troops for our attack.
    We've charged the line and gained the joint;
We've chased the enemy with tanks; ---
    Back toward the Rhine his legions pour: ---
We've killed him off in close-filled ranks
    And got this whole world's grateful thanks.
We thought we'd finished up the row,
    And yet, somehow, once more
        We'll settle the war!

Last winter round our barracks stove
    We figured how to meet the blow
The Germans said they'd give us when
    They staged their giant springtime "show";
We've often said about this fight,
    "Doug Haig sure could have saved the gore
By using all our plans so bright,"
     (If they had only been more right!) ---
We had it finished on the spot,
    Yet now we've got, once more,
        To settle this war!

    HENRY ON THE GRANDE ROUTE

THESE foreign cars sound fine at home;
    They cost like holy sin;
They have a strange and foreign look,
    And rich men ride within.
But here, where they are all about,
    They do not look so fine;
Then, say! how good it seems to see
    A Ford come down the line

You've got reputation, Henry
    You've got millions running, too
Yet at home they call you road lice,
    Which is merely French for poux.
They never saw these foreign tubs,
    Stalled all along the "Route Gardée,"
While you whiz by a-hitting but
    The highest high spots of the way.
You may have your little troubles
    You may lose your bolts and nuts,
But they wish they had you, Henry,
    For you sure have got the "guts."

The other day my Fiat car
    Was hitting quite a pace.
I heard a car come on behind,
I     cut loose for a race;
I opened up to take the hill,
    And then I gave a sigh,
For a poilu in a Flivver
    Had swiftly passed me by!

You have got the makings, Henry,
    And you've got that U. S. sound;
You have got a U. S. switch-key,
    And a homelike sort of pound.
In the States they may mistreat you
    As a jitney or a plough,
But in war they have to get there,
    And you sure have shown them how.
You may have your little troubles,
    You may lose your bolts and nuts,
But they hand it to you, Henry,
    For you surely have the "guts.''

You may take the Dago Fiat,
    The Renault the Berliet,
Just lead me to a Henry Ford
    I'll swap you any day.
These foreign-speaking cars may sound
    All right to foreign ears,
But they never can touch Henry,
    In a hundred thousand years!

You're not so handsome, Henry,
    As a fancy foreign car,
But your homely U. S. body
    Has a finer look by far.
You maybe have but just two speeds,
    Perhaps you're done in lowly tin,
But where's the man with soul so dead
    Who says you're not all there within!
What if you do have troubles small?
    What if you do lose bolts and nuts?
You make them all bow down in praise,
    For, Henry, you have got the "guts."

    QUAND LA GUERRE SERA FINIE

AFTER the war we're going to go
    To frolic in frivolous Paris;
We'll make a stream of champagne flow
    From Etoile down to Saint Denis;
Through the Arc de Triomphe we will file,
    And visit all the swell cafés;
We'll celebrate it in a style
    Not equalled since the Hundred Days:
That's what we 're really fighting for-
    That party that we 've got in store ---
                After the war.

After the war we're going to throw
    Away these sombre khaki clothes;
We'll tell the officers to go
    Back where the heavy timber grows.
Each one of us is going to wed
    A charming little French soubrette,
Provided all of us aren't dead,
    As we may well be some day yet.
We're ready any time to cease;
    Why, all we're fighting for is peace ---
                After the war.

After the war we'll take a trip
    Around the world by land and sea;
We'll hum our way from ship to ship;
    We'll be unhampered ---we'll be free!
After a time we'll reach New York;
    Then will commence a round of fun:
There'll he no bottle with a cork
    After it's over and we're done;
The pace we'll hit will be a streak
    When we get back to Amérique ---
                After the war.

These are the plans that we have made
    For the day when the craze of war is past.
For the day we sometimes feel afraid
    Will never come must come at last;
And when it does, we've doped it out
    In the manner I have just portrayed.
We've fixed it up to gad about,
    And these are the plans that we have made.
But all of our dreams are but idle foam
    As a matter of fact, we'll hit for home ---
                After the war!

                        EPIC YEARS

THE star-shells flare; the tortuous trenches wind
In snake-like turns from sea to mountain height.
Great shells of steel, designed by master mind,
Crash from the guns and kill; they hiss in flight.
Long lines of men in faded blue and brown
March grimly up toward agony and pain,
Charge shell-torn lands of fire and steel, go down,
And lie and rot, their deaths perhaps in vain.
Come, come, O Bard, from out some unknown place,
Come and record, in songs and words of fire,
The noble deaths, the struggles of the race,
The fight to check an Emperor's desire
Come, strike thy harp; the force of man is hurled ; -
Give us an Iliad of the Western World!

            WAR'S ABSOLUTION

A MONARCH'S hopes, a people duped to fight,
Nor heed the object they were fighting for,
Conflicting aims of nations, each one right,
Have plunged the world, unwilling, into war.
Three years of tragic bloodshed, waste, and woe,
Three years of useless struggle on the field,
Of daily conflict with an unseen foe
And wholesale murder which no cause can shield,
Unless, hereafter, when the end shall be,
The right of war shall be denied to states,
And power of a real democracy
Shall purge the folly of unnatural hates.
Then firmly Freedom shall arise and stand
Where writhes the bloody snake of "No Man's Land."

        FIVE MILES BEHIND THE LINES

THE Champagne hills were blue last night,
The western sky was flushed with red,
And the poilus played at a soccer game;
Beyond, old Téton raised his head.

The poilus played at a soccer game,
While the heavy cannon boomed near by,
And, in the distance, dot-like, small,
Were the Boche balloons in the northern sky.

The poilus played at a soccer game,
Forgetting tile war's infernal strife,
And the watchers laughed and talked and smoked
As if this play were their all in life.

The poilus played at a soccer game,
While the Boche balloons with seeing eye
Watched o'er the Champagne hills of France
From the reddening blue of the evening sky --
They hung and watched, and I wondered if they
Saw the poilus at their play.

Mourmelon le Grand
Champagne Front
March 1. 1918

            CHAMPAGNE HILLS

OVER the sleeping little town
    A silvery full moon casts its light,
Down o'er the barracks, gaunt and brown,
    Down o'er the chalk mounds, low and white.

The outlined trees stand stark and bare;
    The church spire towers o'er the silent street;
Long since the echoing bugle's blare
    Has sounded the clarion for "retreat."

A silvery haze drifts thin and low;
    The clumps of pines are an inky blue;
Down on the roofs of the barracks row
    The moonlight glistens on the dew.

Then of a sudden comes a gun ---
    A crash, a lingering, echoing scream:
The stillness, the calm, the peace are done,
    Vanished like fragments of a dream.

Come in a happier time, O Night;
    Come soothe this agony and pain,
And bathe with all your tender light
    These troubled hills of the Champagne.

Mourmelon le Grand
Champagne Front
March 1. 1918

        DOWN ALONG THE AISNE

A FERTILE, lovely valley
    Which is scarred by marks of strife;
A host of red-tiled villages
    Where ruin now is rife;
Houses wrecked and roofs caved in,
    All open to the rain,
And churches wrecked and battered-
    Down along the Aisne.

Deserted are the villages
    And overgrown the fields,
And autumns four have come and died,
    And there have been no yields,
But only waste and shell-holes
    Where there once was yellowing grain
And fruitful sounds of harvest---
    Down along the Aisne.

Gun-pits sear the hillsides
    And the trees are ripped and torn;
The roads by wheels of cannon
    Have been rutted deep and worn
Grim trenches cut the meadows
    And the barbed-wire lines remain,
Their rust deep hid in wild grass---
    Down along the Aisne.

When the roar of war is over,
    And all the killing's done,
And a peace rests on the hillsides
    And a silence on the gun,
Then the tender hands of Nature
    Will touch and soothe your pain,
And bring back life and harvests---
    Down along the Aisne.

Germoise, October 17, 1917

         ON THE OISE, 1918

THE lilacs bloom by the castle wall,
    Whose crumbling stones tell another age,
And spring, in our hearts, seems the best of all,
    So fair has Nature set her stage.

The willows bud new leaves of green,
    And, up on the lull in the forest deep,
Amid the underbrush between
    The trees, the first new violets peep.

The spring again, so sweet and gay,
    The spring recurrent! . . . yet the guns
Beat and rumble, night and day,
    Up where the battle's lifeblood runs.

The lilacs bloom by the castle wall.
    And still will their blossoms scent the dawn
When the cannon's roar, and the bugle's call,
    And we ourselves, are dead and gone.

Pont-St.-Maxence, April 15, 1918

ON PASSING THROUGH AMIENS, MAY, 1918

A BIT of ivy clambers o'er the wall
Of this forsaken house in Amiens;
Its crumbling shell-torn stones about it fall,
Its street is lonely and devoid of men. . . .
Deserted is this city of the dead,
Unseeing, cold, its shutters blind stare down,
Unheeding of the lonely sentry's tread,
Insensate to the sadness of the town. . . .
Gone, gone the folk of all these pleasant streets,
Gone all the colors, all the swirl of life,
Gone all the sounds, save where the cannon beats,
And brings, each hour, new sadness to the strife. . . .
And yet, here where the ruins hourly fall,
This bit of ivy clambers o'er the wall.

                THE GUNS!

            THE guns! The guns!
        They rumble and roar and pound;
            The guns! The guns!
        The night is a welter of sound;
Flashes that pierce the blackening sky,
Pits of flame in the woods near by,
Shells that go hissing along on high
                From the guns!

            The guns! The guns!
        They rumble amid the waste;
            The guns! The guns!
        They're never in any haste;
Monsters of iron that never tire,
Endless they keep their rolling fire.
A hunger for steel's the sole desire
                Of the guns!

            The guns! The guns!
        They mangle and tear and kill;
            The guns! The guns!
        They strike with an iron will;
Nor heeding nor stopping, their fire they pour,
And many's the lad that will hear no more
The sudden crash and the hiss and rear
                Of the guns!

        THE STAR-SHELL FLARE

OUT of the darkness of the night,
    Over the guns' staccato crash,
Suddenly, silently, coning high,
Spreading a glow o'er the inky sky,
    Showing the lines like an ugly gash,
Then drifting away in a breath of air --- 
           The star-shell flare.

As o'er a pageant of the gods,
    Wondrous it hangs, majestic, still,
Revealing beneath its searching glow
The wire and the shell-holes down below,
    Lighting the slope of the fire-swept hill,
No longer green, no longer fair
            In the star-shell's flare.

The eye of two armies, face to face,
    It searches that riven strip of land,
The waste of holes, the lines of wire,
Waiting to turn a hail of fire
    On perhaps a stray patrolling band
What sudden deaths have happened there,
            In the star-shell's flare!

It drifts and dies, and the darkness comes,
    Twofold blacker than before.
Perhaps when this whirl with death is done,
And silence rests on the belching gun,
    We'll think again of our days of war,
And the men we used to know out there,
            In the star-shell's flare!