When your first hitch is over, and you have cashed your finals few,
And a breakfast and a boat ride are all that's left for you,
And you toy with your collar as you don your suit of "citz,"
While your bunkie, sitting near you, has the bluest kind of fits;
You a-bubbling over with pleasure at the thoughts of going out;
The friends at home will welcome you, of that there's not a doubt;
And it never seems to strike you that you have made a beaten track,
In these years you've been a soldier—that you might come back.
So you hasten out as boat call goes—last call you have to stand—
And you wave farewell to comrades as you push away from land.
First call for drill is sounding from the bugler's throat of gold,
But you are free—"don't have to stand no drill in heat or cold."
Altho' you get to wondering as things fade from sight,
If drilling really was so bad as walking post at night.
You think, of course, when first discharged, one feels just sort of sad;
But it's Army fever symptoms—And you've got 'em bad.
You're in business on the outside, and you're making good, it seems;
But the bugle keeps a-calling, and a-calling through your dreams.
Then some day you meet a soldier on a furlough for a week;
And you think it only friendly to go up to him and speak;
And you find you knew his brother, or his cousin, or his friend,
And your job upon the outside has found a sudden end;
For a longing fierce comes over you, and you cannot resist—
It's the crisis of the fever—and you reenlist.
ONE TO THE ARMY BEAN
I've eaten funny dishes on Luzon's tropical shore,
I've eaten Japan's bamboo shoots and oysters by the score.
Of caviar I've had my share, I love anchovies, too,
And way down in old Mindanao I've eaten carabao;
Of Johnny Bull's old rare roast I nearly got the gout,
And with chums at Heidelberg I dined on sauerkraut;
In China I have eaten native rice and sipped their famous teas;
In Naples I, 'long with the rest, ate macaroni and cheese;
In Cuba where all things go slow, manana's their one wish;
I dined on things that had no names, but tasted strong with fish.
In Mexico the chili burnt the coating off my tongue;
And with Irish landlord I dined on pigs quite young,
Yet you may have your dishes that is served to kings and queens,
But I am happy and contented with a dish of Army Beans.
LITTLE THINGS
Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand
Make the mighty ocean
And the desert land.
Little hours of drilling,
Little "rifle shoots"
Make efficient soldiers
Out of raw recruits.
Little hours some spend in
Breaking liberty,
Oft' amount to something
More than E. P. D.
Little words of kindness,
When you spare a few,
Sound all right to some one;
Do they not to you?
SING-A-SONG-A-SIXPENCE
Sing-a-song-a-sixpence
Every-body dry—
Half-a-dozen Privates
Opening some rye.