If it’s cold and it’s rainy and everything’s mud,
And you’re groping your way through a nice little flood,
And you stand on your head with an elegant thud—
                It’s a trip-wire.

When silence is golden (for “news” is the quest),
And you’re returning and stepping your best,
And your rifle goes part way and you go the rest—
                It’s a trip-wire.

THE FAVORITE SONG.

(“There’s a long, long Trail.”)

They sing a song that the pines of Maine
    Hear in the winter’s blast—
They sing a song that the riders hum,
    Where the cattle plains spread vast;
But there is one they love the most—
    And they keep it for the last.

They sing the lays of Puget Sound
    Aglimmering in the sun—
Of the cotton fields of Alabam’,
    Where the Gulf-bound rivers run,
But one they sing with a wistful look,
    When all the rest are done.

They chant of the land of Dixie,
    And their “Little Gray Home in the West”—
Of how they’ll “can the Kaiser”—
    And they roar with bellowing zest;
But one they sing as it were a prayer—
    The song they love the best.

From Xivray to Cantigny—
    From Soissons to the Meuse —
From the Argonne wilds to the white-clad Vosges
    Agleam in the dawn’s first hues—
They sing a sacred song, for it
    Is red with battle-dews.

For it is sanctified by space—
    And the cruel wheel of Time;
And sacrifice has hallowed it,
    And mellowed every rhyme,
Until it wells from weary throats
    A thing men call sublime.

In frozen trench and billet—
    In mire, muck and rain—
Where the roar of unleashed batteries
    Hurl forth their fires again;
At rest, or back in Blighty,
    Torn with shell and pain—

There’s a song they dub the fairest—
    There’s a lilt they love the best—
“There’s a long, long trail awinding”
    To the haven of their quest,
Where the tip of the rainbow reaches
    A land in the golden west.

CAPTAIN BLANKBURG.

“When Greek meets Greek.”

I

They knew he was a German—
    They thought he was a spy—
Toujours they “covered” him and said,
    “We’ll catch him by-and-by.”

They tried to find, by word or act,
    In front-line trench or rear,
Some circumstance that would betray
    His treacherous dealings clear.

They scanned his face when hostile flares
    Set No Man’s Land alight—
They watched him when the Hun barrage
    Tore craters left and right.

They noted every move he made,
    With ever wakeful eye,
Reiterating o’er and o’er,
    “We’ll catch him by-and-by.”

II

At last the opportunity
    Loomed large in fact and view,
And every near-sleuth in the bunch
    Saw that his hunch was true.

Because, upon an inky night,
    When mist hung o’er the nation,
The captain took a picked patrol
    To gather information.

And as they crept on hands and knees,
    In Land No Man may own,
Their stomachs struck the dew-wet grass
    With never sound or moan.

(The reason being that the Boche,
    On selfsame errand set,
Were creeping hitherward unseen—
    And likewise mad and wet.)

’Twas then the detail turned their heads
    To where their captain lay,
And every rifle in that squad
    Was pointed straight his way.

And he? He running true to form,
    Two inches raised his chin,
And spouted German volubly
    In accents clear and thin.

Click, click, click, click, click, down the line
    Each safety-catch turned o’er,
But the captain did not hesitate,
    And merely talked the more.

In conversation friendly
    He rambled gently on
Unto the Boches’ leader,
    Till it was nearly dawn.

The while his men they “covered” him—
    The while their hearts grew black—
And you could feel the trigger fingers
    Squeezing up the slack.

Just what the purport of his last
    Remark was, no one knew,
But in a burst of confidence
    A Boche head rose in view. . . .

Across the four-fold stillness
    That covers No Man’s Land,
An automatic pistol shot
    Rang clear and piercing and

The next day German papers told
    How Captain Skunk von Skee
Was killed by a Yankee captain,
    And Yankee treachery.

LITTLE WAR MOTHERS.

When you look at his picture and your eyes
    Are dimmed and mighty wet,
And it seems as though your trembling hands
    Could reach and touch him yet:
When you faintly call and he answers not
    Your supplicating prayer,
Remember his last thought was You:
    I know—for I was there.

When the day is done and the hearth-fire glows,
    And you slowly knit and knit;
And your furtive eyes from the embers rise
    To where he used to sit:
And you feel he never can slip up
    And kiss you unaware,
Remember his last word was You:
    I know—for I was there.

When your dear brave heart is breaking—
    And life is ’reft of joy;
And only the spark of memory—
    The face of a boy—your boy:
May the good God hover over you,
    And touch your silvered hair,
And tell you what I’ve tried to tell:
    He knows — for He was there.

INTERRUPTED CHOW.

I’ve had some mighty narrow calls—
    Some close shaves not a few,
But one of the fairly closest
    I’ll now narrate to you.

’Twas midnight—hush! the plot grows thick—
    Crowd close, and hold your breath—
’Twas midnight—and the slum-cart came
    Upon its round of death.

(It isn’t really that the slum
    Was quite as bad as that,
But the playful Boche so often dropped
    A shell where it was at.)

’Twas midnight—and our appetites
    Were whetted large and keen,
As trench feed, once a day, must leave
    An interval between.

And so we sought the buzzy-cart,
    “Mess-kits alert” and found
It standing in a quiet spot
    Where never came a sound—

Excepting that of bursting shells
    Across the field a way,
(But as I said before, the Boche
    Is very given to play).

All innocent and hungry-like
    And empty to the core,
I came upon that buzzy-cart,
    With never thought of war.

More calm, beneficent and mild—
    More free from things of strife—
I promise you I never was
    In all my mortal life.

The air was fair, the stars were out,
    The mocking-bird sang clear;
The poppies bloomed, the sergeants fumed,
    And food was very near.

When suddenly the ground gave way—
    It seemed a mile or more—
And the whole adjacent landscape leapt
    To heaven with a soar.

Earth, rocks and stars commingling
    In a swirling mass arose,
Where I, recumbent in the hole,
    Assumed an easy pose.

And when I found that I was there—
    Both arms, both legs, and head,
I picked me up and cogitated
    Why I wasn’t dead.

For