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.