Not with vain boasts and mouthings—
Not with jesting light—
But for Duty and Love of Country
Come we in armor dight.
Not for our own advantage—
Not for Adventure’s lust—
Not for the hope of honor—
But a Cause that is high and just.
Not for the praise of our fellow-man,
Or greed or gain or creed,
But for the sight of the suffering eyes
That call us in their need.
(The withering, mad machine-guns
Shall drop us one by one,
Where the red, red streams of No Man’s Land
Gleam ’neath a blood-red sun.)
(The shriek of the spraying shrapnel—
The roar and the blinding glare,
And the gaping crater’s dripping fangs
Shall ope and find us there.)
Not in the strong man’s tyranny
Or the pride of worldly things,
But guarding clean traditions,
Unstained by the hands of kings.
Not with sudden yearning,
But knowing the risks we dare,
We board the waiting galleons
For a Nation brave and fair.
(For a Nation bearing the battle’s brunt—
The strength of the Vandals’ blast—
With an even keel and a steady wheel,
And her Colors nailed to the mast.)
Not with hectic fire,
But weighing the thing we do,
We cross to the coasts of the fighting hosts—
To the France our Fathers knew.
Brothers in blood of old—and now—
Together to hunt and slay,
Till we drive the Beast to his bone-strewn lair—
An eye for an eye—a hair for a hair—
And we leave him broken and bleeding there
Forever and a day.