December, 1916
What a lack of reason
In this earthly throng!
In and out of season
Everything goes wrong;
Over there in Europe
Kaiser, king and czar,
Raise a mighty flare up,
Plunge a world in war.
Neither king nor kaiser
Down in Mexico,
Are the people wiser?
Echo answers, "No!"
There, contending factions
Murder, pillage, burn;
Plunder and exactions
Everywhere you turn.
Has the world gone crazy?
Are the men all fools?
Is our thinking hazy,
Spite of all our schools?
THE TREES
The wind that through the forest blows
May scatter leaves and blossoms wide.
The parent tree but firmer grows
When by the tempest torn and tried.
The stately oak withstands the storm
That rocks its boughs in fiercest strife;
The winds that shake its sturdy form
But give a deeper, stronger life.
The maple leaves are falling fast,
The sugar groves look gaunt and grim,
But sap will flow when winter's past,
And sweetness course through every limb.
The mighty eucalyptus tree
But sheds its bark at winter's call
Its leaves retain their greenery,
And yield a curing oil for all.
A seedling in the Maori's time,
Now, toughened by a thousand gales,
Straight stands the kauri in its prime,
Fit mast for proudest ship that sails.
Drooping its weary fronds, the palm
In sorrow stands on sun-baked plain
Till comes, like blessed healing balm,
The early and the latter rain.
The noble banyan dying lives,
In youth 'twould shield a single man,
In age its spreading shelter gives
Shade for a prince's caravan.
No weaklings these, their roots deep down
In Mother Earth retain their hold.
To heaven they raise a leafy crown,
Sound-hearted, loyal, earnest-souled.
WHO KNOWS
The pessimist
Our lot is cast in evil days
We almost lose our faith in God,
We cannot comprehend His ways,
Nor recognize His chast'ning rod.
To stem the Hun's relentless tread,
His hymns of hate, his crimes of Cain
We give our daily toll of dead,
But wonder if 'tis all in vain.
The Optimist
Brave men must fight, brave men must fall,
Whene'er a tyrant lifts his head;
When Freedom sounds her battle call,
We must not grudge our noble dead.
E'en now the victor's shouts we hear,
On blood bought hill, o'er shell-swept plain;
The end of tyranny is near,
Our struggle has not been in vain.
The Socialist
If, when our cheering shall have died,
No more for sordid grain we plan,
But shed the hoofs and horns of pride,
And strive to help our fellow man,
So each will get a fair return
For labor done by hand or brain
And none can take what others earn;
The war will not have been in vain.
The Anarchist
If still the selfish creed we preach
Of pleasure, ease and strife for gold;
Employer, and employee, each
Resentful, greedy, uncontrolled;
Then poor men still will curse the great,
And hellish hordes will rise again
With hungry, hardened, Hunnish hate;
This war will have been fought in vain.
AFTERWARDS
When the war shall have ceased with its sorrow,
Its hunger, and horror, and hell,
In the dawn of a brighter to-morrow,
What tale will historians tell?
Will the nations get records of glory,
Of cowardice, courage or crime,
When the sages record the true story,
To ring down the decades of time?
We believe that some peoples now broken,
And crushed by the Turk and the Hun
Will arise from their darkness unspoken,
And stand in the light of the sun.
And it may be that Germans, grown wiser
And taught at so fearful a cost,
Will have hanged their contemptible Kaiser
And regained the fair name they have lost.
We believe that the allies now fighting,
And lavishing billions untold,
Will have found, in the wrong that needs righting,
A service far better than gold;
That in bearing the load of another,
In heeding the cry of the pained,
That in staying the feet of a brother,
Fresh strength for themselves will have gained.
And some lands that now cravenly study
The getting of guerdons and gain,
May have found their gold blasted and bloody,
And tarnished by tears for the slain;
And because they dishonoured their stations
Were weak when they should have been strong,
May be treated with scorn by the nations,
A byword and hissing among.
So the scribe will set down in his pages
The story the centuries tell,
That, for sin, death is still the true wages,
And broad the road leading to hell.
GERMAN SECURITIES FALL
The British guns have spoken
And Bill may lose his crown,
The German line is broken,
And saur-kraut is down.
The gallant French are storming
The Huns with iron hail;
They've given Fritz a warning,
And limburger is stale.
The Russ is westward pushing,
Herding the Huns like sheep,
Thus ends the big four flushing,
And liverwurst is cheap.
King Victor's brave Italians
Are driving back pell-mell
The Austrian battalions
And weiners will not sell.
The Belgians, too, are holding
Their end up with the rest,
They hear the Teutons scolding,
Bologna's past its best.
Roumanians, and others,
Who now are standing pat
Will call the allies brothers
When lager beer goes flat.
TROUBLE IN THE TRENCHES
The true story of the difficulty on the Russian front.
September, 1917
When Slav and Russ had raised a fuss,
And sent their Czar a-kiting,
Said Givinski to Blatherski,
"We've done enough of fighting."
"I've got a cough," wheezed Killmanoff,
"From working in the trenches,
I'd rather fight a doggoned sight,
Than put up with the stenches.
I want to quit and take a sit
In some place clean and brighter,
Let those who like come down the pike
To strafe the German blighter."
"I've got the itch," growled Dirtovitch,
"Bog spavin and lumbago."
"I'm never dry," swore Goshallski,
"I smell worse than a Dago."
"This cheese is high," grouched Buttinski,
"No hungry rat would eat it."
"This meat is tough," whined Ivanuff,
"I think we ought to beat it."
"It makes me mad," stormed Hazembad,
"The prevalence of vermin."
"You've said it right," owned Gotabite,
"I'm lousy as a German."
Said Takemoff, "Our lives are rough
In these here blooming ditches,
But mine's the worst by half a verst,
Since some guy stole my breeches."
Their pay was back, their belts were slack,
Each man his troubles blurted.
With empty guns to face the Huns,
Small wonder they deserted.
THE WORSHIPPERS
Wo Sing was just a heathen blind,
A dull insensate clod,
Yet somehow to his darkened mind,
There came a thought of God.
He shaped an idol out of clay,
And to it bowed his knee;
No one had taught him how to pray,
Alas, the poor Chinee!
An artist took his brush and paint,
And on his canvas board,
He wrought a picture of a saint,
And called it Christ the Lord;
With patient hand, and wondrous skill,
Retouched that kindly face,
But thought it ever lacking still,
In majesty and grace.
A preacher in his pulpit stood,
(His words the people trust,)
His message was that God is good,
And knows mankind is dust.
He drew a picture of a Lord,
Omniscient, pure and kind,
His thoughts, His purposes, His word,
Too high for human mind.
The Kaiser has conceived a god,
To rule o'er sea and land,
With strong, remorseless, iron rod,
In Hohenzollern hand;
A god who honors lies and fraud,
And mean hypocrisy,
A boastful, bloody, brutal god,
The god of Germany.
And thus we all our idols make,
As our conception is,
And pray our Father, but to take,
Our helpless hands in His;
To give us each a ray of hope,
To each a message bring,
Each king and kaiser, priest and pope,
Each humble poor Wo Sing.
TO JEAN BAPTISTE
O Jean Baptiste! do not resist
The military act, Jean;
You like to fight, the cause is right,
(You know this is a fact, Jean.)
When tasks are hard, 'tis not, old pard.
Your way to ever shirk, Jean;
The saw-log jam, mills, woods and dam
All tell how well you work, Jean.
It isn't fear that keeps you here,
You're active, brave and strong, Jean;
But in this scrap, by some mishap,
We got you going wrong, Jean.
In dear old France, the Huns advance
With bullet, bomb and gas, Jean,
It's hardly square that you're not there;
(Hank Bourassa's an ass, Jean.)
That we may win, you must begin
To help more in this fight, Jean,
The die is cast, forget our past
Intolerance and spite, Jean,
The things you love may worthless prove,
If you don't get your gun, Jean;
Your woods, and mines, your homes and shrines,
May all go to the Hun, Jean.
Our kinsmen brave, across the wave,
The Kaiser have defied, Jean,
British and French, in bloody trench,
Are fighting side by side, Jean.
Where duty leads, what matter creeds,
Or what baptismal font, Jean?
So let us sing—"Long live the king"
And join the bonne entente, Jean.
THE LOST TRIBES
We read about the tribes dispersed,
That Israelitish host,
Condemned and exiled, sin-accursed,
Among the Gentiles lost,
We wonder what strange paths they walk,
In what far land they dwell,
Where now does Reuben feed his flock,
And Joseph buy and sell?
In search of them we vainly roam
Through distant, foreign states,
Then find a people nearer home
With all the Hebrew traits.
They seize the heathen nations' land,
And hold it by the sword,
And deem themselves a righteous band.
The chosen of the Lord.
They deem themselves a righteous band,
And for religion's sake
They bravely compass sea and land
One proselyte to make.
They drive poor Hagar from their homes
The wilderness to search,
While Abraham, forsooth, becomes
A pillar in the church.
They scorn their dreaming brother's right
To visions he may have,
And to the warring Ishmaelite
They sell him as a slave.
Unmoved they hear the cry of pain,
Old Jacob's wailing note,
"An evil beast my son has slain,
There's blood on Joseph's coat."
When wearied on the desert track,
With hunger faint and weak,
Egyptian flesh pots lure them back,
The garlic and the leek.
The fruitful promised land they view,
But fear to enter in.
And wander still, a faithless crew,
The Wilderness of Sin.
Their enemies before them flee.
Their foemen's gates they hold,
But Esau's birthright still we see
To crafty Jacob sold.
They worship Aaron's golden calf,
But scorn his priestly rod,
And when from Marah's springs they quaff,
They murmur against God.
Though David's sceptre still remains
With Judah's royal line,
On Leah's sons are bloody stains,
And Ephriam's drunk with wine;
Blind Sampson, by Delilah's shears,
Is made grind Dagon's corn,
But only in a thousand years
Is there a Moses born.
RELIABILITY
Britannia's word was spoken
The feeble to defend,
That promise was not broken,
She kept it to the end.
Britannia's word is good,
Tried, tested, proved in blood,
In every land, 'mid snow or sand,
She for the truth has stood.
Britannia borrowed millions
In thrifty days of old,
Now, when she asks for billions,
She always gets the gold.
Britannia's note is good,
She signs it with her blood,
Each promise made, she fully paid,
Let cost be what it would.
Britannia's sons are falling,
The proud, the strong, the gay,
They heard their mother calling,
They would not say her, nay.
Britannia's sword is good,
She draws it when she should,
The flag that flies 'neath all the skies
A thousand years has stood.
THE McLEANS
The heather's on fire. McLeans from the byre,
The hamlet, the city, the wide open plains,
The lairds and rapscallions fill up the battalions
With blue blood, with true blood, the loyal McLeans.
They hear the drums rattle, they rush to the battle,
(Each man in the clan a base coward disdains),
They die in their glory, the trenches are gory
With red blood, with shed blood of gallant McLeans.
Afar on the heather, where hame folk foregather,
The pibroch is wailing a dirge for the slain,
The women are weeping, their lane vigils keeping,
Sair, sair, are the hearts in the clan o' McLean.
But mony will stick it, till Kaiser Bill's lickit,
And doontrodden people get back a' their ain,
Then Maids will stop greeting, for soon they'll be meeting
The bonnie brave lads o' the clan o' McLean.