The word rings out; a million feet tramp forward on the road,
Along that path of sacrifice o’er which their fathers strode.
With eager eyes and cheeks aflame, with cheers on smiling lips,
These fighting men of ’17 move onward to their ships.
Nor even love may hold them back, nor halt that stern advance,
As your dear lad, and my dear lad, go on their way to France.
“AS SHE IS SPOKE”
Boston Transcript
I’VE heard a half a dozen times
Folks call it Reims.
That isn’t right, though, so it seems,
Perhaps it’s Reims.
Poor city ruined now by flames—
Can it be Reims?—
That once was one of France’s gems—
More likely Reims.
I’ll get it right sometime, perchance;
I’m told it’s Reims.
THE SPIRES OF OXFORD
(Seen from the Train)
WINIFRED M. LETTS
From “The Spires of Oxford and Other Poems,” by Winifred M. Letts, published and copyright, 1917, by E. P. Dutton & Company, New York. Special permission to reproduce in this book.
I SAW the spires of Oxford
As I was passing by,
The gray spires of Oxford
Against a pearl-gray sky.
My heart was with the Oxford men
Who went abroad to die.
The years go fast in Oxford,
The golden years and gay,
The hoary colleges look down
On careless boys at play.
But when the bugles sounded—War!
They put their games away.
They left the peaceful river,
The cricket field, the quad,
The shaven lawns of Oxford
To seek a bloody sod—
They gave their merry youth away
For country and for God.