OVER THE TOP
——————
A lusty lad from Lewis,—
Bright gem from Britain's crown—
Assailed by Huns with gas and guns
In "No Man's Land" was down.
No power on earth can save him,
'Tis madness, then, to try;
Still to the deed sprang forth with speed
A balloch ban from Skye!
He volunteered to enter
That zone of certain death,
And unafraid went forth to aid,
While thousands held their breath.
Thru all that hell of fire
He sped like mountain deer—
On shell-torn ground his comrade found,
And bore him to the rear.
Their comrades gather 'round them
To do what mortals can:
But—cruel fate!—they found them
Beyond the help of man.
One whispers, "Da mar ha u?"
"Gla vadh," the friend replied;
Then rescuer and rescued
"Went over" side by side!
How marred the manly beauty!
Now torn by shot and shell—
Ye Huns have done your duty
And served your master well!
Poor bleeding, broken bodies
To mother earth consign—
The spirit of the laddies
Ye cannot more confine.
Over the top together—
Over the great gray host—
Homing like birds of freedom,
Back to their rock-bound coast.
Over the top together!
Out from the fighting list:
Home where the purple heather
Blooms in the Highland mist.
Sons of mothers returning—
Souls from the clod set free:
Back where the home guards, yearning,
Pray that their eyes might see—
See through the veil between them,
Though but a brief, brief glance,
Into the eyes of loved ones,
Dead on the fields of France!
Home where the curlew's calling
Notes that are wild and free!
Home, where the mist is falling
Into a storm-tossed sea.
Parents of brave, dead soldiers,
Dear sisters, sweethearts, wives,
Is there no balm in Gilead
For all the dear lost lives?
Yes, there's a balm in knowing
They died for you and me:
Their precious blood bestowing,
The price of liberty!
Dear lusty lad from Lewis:
Brave blue-eyed boy from Skye:
In this great war you show us
How bravely men can die!
THE ALKALI LAND
or
A-ROAMING I WOULD GO.
——————
I left my old home and my friends in the East,
Ambitious to better my fortunes, forsooth;
And seek amid scenes of the strenuous West,
The gold which had gilded the dreams of my youth.
But gold not alone, was the dochus mo chree
Which painted that faraway country so fair;
A lure more compelling was beckoning me—
The maiden I loved since my childhood was there!
I did what a man without money must do,
Just walked when the "brakies" were looking too sharp.
I sang when I felt in the humor, 'tis true—
When lonesome, like David I hung up my harp!
I envied the lot of the fellow inside,
Who traveled in comfort asleep or awake;
While I, of all comfort and slumber denied,
Was beating my way on the beam of a brake!
Thus onward I journeyed by night and by day,
Combating the problems of food and of rest—
Content as I traveled the wearisome way
To know I was nearing the wonderful West.
My pilgrimage, first uneventful and slow,
Changed color as Texas' vast reaches I struck.
Arizona the arid, and New Mexico—
Half hell and half heaven, were also my luck.
When tortured and weak by the heat of the sand,
And swollen my tongue and the water was done,
I wondered no more as I passed through the land
At the myriad bones bleaching white in the sun.
Yes, on as I plodded the limitless range,
In that land of hot sand and eternal clear skies,
How oft in my thirst did I long for a change
To my own native hills, where the watersprings rise!
O Compton beloved! what visions arose,
Of thy hills and dark vales and thy cold mountain streams!
And each fountain-like fuadhran[D] which bubbles and flows,
On the farm back at home in the land of my dreams!
Some tell me the beauty of Nature, abroad,
Surpasses in grandeur the country we boast—
They'd alter their views if they traversed the road
I wearily tramped on my way to the "Coast".
There may be a spot in some faraway clime
Where Nature in robes of perfection is dressed;
But give me her moods and her image sublime
As seen in the wild, woolly wastes of the West!
I slept with the red men who roam through that land—
Gaunt remnant that tells of the white man's abuse;
And often, although I could not understand,
Was I lulled by the soft clucking language they use.
We never took thought on occasions like these
Of the dangers which lurked as we lay on the ground—
Though the howl of coyote was borne past on the breeze,
And the rattlesnake coiled with an ominous sound!
Asleep 'neath the stars of that beautiful clime,
In the shadowy gloom that same mesa had cast,
Undisturbed in my slumbers, I'd dream of the time
When the long dreary miles still ahead would be passed.
Mysterious mesas! how ghostly ye loom!
How spectral and huge o'er the alkali waste;
The secrets of ages thy vastness entomb,
Are seemingly safe in thy mystical breast!
When shadows of even' crept over the land,
And mountains around me grew ghostly and grey,
The fringe of the foothills I anxiously scanned
For lithe, tawny forms ever prowling for prey.
Oft during my journey I fancied that rain
Fell cool from a cloud on my thirst-swollen lips;
Yet cloudless the sky o'er that quivering plain—
'Twas the last ray of hope undergoing eclipse!
At times would the lure of this mirage prevail,
Till, reason returning, I'd hasten me back;
For I knew the safe trail was to follow the rail
Gleaming hot in the sun on the Santa Fe track!
The phantoms of fever thus beckoned in vain,
Where better and stronger than I had been lost;
Though the hell of Mohave was scorching my brain,
I crossed it in safety and struck for the Coast.
O boundless Pacific! I deem it no loss
To flee to thy arms from the cactus and sand;
How sweet on thy deep, heaving bosom to toss
After parching so long in the alkali land!
I boarded a schooner that slopped in the bay—
A tub of a ship for Seattle outbound—
And up from old Frisco we wallowed our way
To lovely Seattle, the Queen of the Sound.
And there on a hill, in a beautiful spot,
Overlooking Lake Union's low murmuring wave,
The love of my youth, whom so long I had sought,
Alone among strangers I found—in her grave!
FOOTNOTE:
[D] Water spring.