(1918)
IT WAS a British Linesman. His face was like a
fist,
His sleeve all stripes and chevrons from the
elbow to the wrist.
Said he to an American (with other words of his):
"It's a big thing you are doing—do you know
how big it is?"
"I guess, Sir," that American inevitably drawled,
"Big Bill's our proposition an' we're goin' for him
bald.
You guys may have him rattled, but I figure it's
for us
To slaughter, quarter, grill or bile, an' masticate
the cuss."
"I hope your teeth," the Linesman said, "are
equal to your tongue—
But that's the sort of carrion that's better when
it's hung.
Yet—the big thing you're doing I should like to
make you see!"
"Our stunt," said that young Yankee, "is to set
the whole world free!"
The Linesman used a venial verb (and other parts
of speech):
"That's just the way the papers talk and
politicians preach!
But apart from gastronomical designs upon the
Hun—
And the rather taller order—there's a big thing
that you've done."
"Why, say! The biggest thing on earth, to any
cute onlooker,
Is Old Man Bull and Uncle Sam aboard the
same blamed hooker!
One crew, one port, one speed ahead, steel-true
twin-hearts within her:
One ding-dong English-singin' race—a race
without a winner!"
The boy's a boyish mixture—half high-brow and
half droll:
So brave and naïve and cock-a-hoop—so sure
yet pure of soul!
Behold him bright and beaming as the bride-
groom after church—
The Linesman looking wistful as a rival in the
lurch!
"I'd love to be as young as you—" he doesn't
even swear—
"Love to be joining up anew and spoiling for my
share!
But when your blood runs cold and old, and brain
and bowels squirm,
The only thing to ease you is some fresh blood in
the firm.
"When the war was young, and we were young,
we felt the same as you:
A few short months of glory—and we didn't care
how few!
French, British and Dominions, it took us all the
same—
Who knows but what the Hun himself enjoyed
his dirty game!
"We tumbled out of tradesmen's carts, we fell off
office stools;
Fathers forsook their families, boys ran away from
schools;
Mothers untied their apron-strings, lovers un-
loosed their arms—
All Europe was a wedding and the bells were
war's alarms!
"The chime had changed—You took a pull—the
old wild peal rings on
With the clamour and the glamour of a Genera-
tion gone.
Their fun—their fire—their hearts' desire—are
born again in You!"
"That the big thing we're doin'?"
"It's as big as Man can do!"