The sea that kisses France’s shore,
It beats on yours and mine.
Her love and faith and chivalry,
That sparkle as her wine,
With all our faith and all our love
Commingling combine.
The colors of the flag of France
Are ours by hue and hue:
The blazing red of courage—
The white of purpose true,
And constancy and loyalty
Awoven in the blue.
The spirit and the soul of France,
That shatter fetters free,
They came to us in darkest days
To weld our destiny;
And so with sword in hand we come
To pay our debt to Thee.
To pay our debt a hundredfold—
Friend of our new-born years.
To march with you and fight with you,
Till rise the final cheers—
And hand in hand, o’er a grave-strewn land,
We blend our mingled tears.
Where blends our blood as once it did
In days of a long gone
When the Bourbon lilies leapt and gleamed
Among the Stars on high—
And the white and crimson bands of dawn
Rose in the eastern sky.
And the the white and crimson bands of dawn,
And the Stars that glow and glance,
Shall girdle them their armor on,
With buckler, sword, and lance,
And leap to the charge and sweep the field
With the Trois Couleurs of France,
. . . . . . . . . .
If right is might and Honor lives—
Oh Sister? ’cross the seas—
And Liberty and Justice still
Hold high commune with these;
A four-fold vengeans waits the Hun,
And his iniquities.
THE PACIFIST.
Cowards and curs and traitors,
Fatuous dreaming fools—
Binding us, stripped, for the madman
Nurtured of dastard schools,
Where right of might and who springs first
Are the only known rules.