We are singing in the ships as they carry us to fight,
As our fathers sang before us by the camp-fires' light;
In the wharf-light glare
They can hear us Over There,
When the ships come steaming through the night.
Right across the deep Atlantic where the Lusitania passed,
With the battle-flag of Yankee-land a-floating at the mast,
We are coming all the while,
Over twenty hundred mile,
And we're staying to the finish, to the last.
We are many—we are one—and we're in it overhead,
We are coming as an Army that has seen its women dead,
And the old Rebel Yell
Will be loud above the shell
When we cross the top together, seeing red.
A RING AXIOM.
When the pitiless gong rings out again, and they whip your chair away,
When you feel you'd like to take the floor, whatever the crowd should say,
When the hammering gloves come back again, and the world goes round your head,
When you know your arms are only wax, your hands of useless lead,
When you feel you'd give your heart and soul for a chance to clinch and rest,
And through your brain the whisper comes,
"Give in, you've done your best,"
Why, stiffen your knees and brace your back—and take my word as true—
If the man in front has got you weak, he's just as tired as you.
He can't attack through a gruelling fight and finish as he began;
He's done more work than you to-day—you're just as fine a man.
So call your last reserve of pluck—he's careless with his chin—
You'll put it across him every time—Go in—Go in—Go in!