And uniformed—in rusty best
From cedarn chests and linen bags;
Ah, rough the roads and chill the winds
To sabots split and sudden rags!
Equipment? Aye, ’tis furnished well,
This army of the old and young,—
On shoulder bent a bundle small,
A doll from little fingers swung!
Almost complete—it only lacks
The battle oath and cheer and song;
Save infant fret and agèd sigh,
Now dumbly marches it along.
Past gaping window, roof and sill
It fares to red horizon’s edge,
Past blackened furrow, hearth and fane,—
And fast it grows at every hedge!
Boston News Bureau. Bartholomew F. Griffin
THE BUGLE
Oh calling, and calling, at the rising of the sun,
Hark the bugle clearly singing with the swallows widely winging
In the morning just begun.
“You are going to the flowing of the traffic-roaring street,
“To the toiling and turmoiling, and though toil for man be meet,
“Is it all, is it all, thus to plod and feed and crawl,
“Is there not a thought to stray from your task from day to day?
“Ah, December follows May; leaves will fall!
“For the glory gone before you,
“For the mother-breast bent o’er you,
“The good earth that bore you,
“I call, I call!”
Oh calling, and calling, as the morning mists unfold,
Hark the bugle’s keen upbraiding that true hearts are more than trading
And that steel is more than gold.
“Is there seeming in your dreaming of an endless golden day?
“Ne’er were powers, ne’er were towers, but uncherished would decay.
“Follow through, follow through, foaming wake and throbbing screw,
“All your fair and broad dominions with the seagull’s waving pinions,
“What but swords that did them win once, holds them all?
“For the thousand years behind you,
“For the slothful cords that bind you,
“The future that may find you,
“I call, I call!”
Oh calling, and calling, when the twilight stars are born,
Hark the bugle’s fierce complaining—“Labor—labor—still sustaining,
“Unrequited, laughed to scorn!
“Wheels are humming, you are coming to your fire-lit warmth and ease,
“Ask the teachers, ask the preachers who declaim of ‘love’ and ‘peace,’
“What to do, what to do, if no more my signal blew
“By the Northern ocean-strands, on the scorching desert sands,
“Or beneath the tropic lands’ steamy pall?
“For your plenteous bin and board, now
“For ‘all things in order stored,’ now,
“For Right, for the Lord, now,
“I call, I call!”
Oh calling, and calling, when the dark is closing down,
Hark the bugle clearly crying of the fame beyond all dying,
And the laurel, and the crown.
“Heroes sworded—splendors hoarded by enshrining centuries,
“Life or living—theirs the giving—greater love had none than these!
“Can it be, can it be, sons of steel on land and sea,
“Song and story weft of war-woof, blood and breed from sires of war-proof,
“That ye stand to such a lore proof, one and all?
“For the glory gone before you,
“For the mother-breast bent o’er you,
“The good earth that bore you,
“I call, I call!”