E-text prepared by Pat Saumell and Chuck Greif

Over Here

By

Edgar A. Guest

Author of

"A Heap o' Livin'" "Just Folks"

The Reilly & Britton Co.

Chicago

1918

To the Mothers Over Here

INDEX

[Alarm, The]
[America]
[April Thoughts]
[As It Looks to the Boy]
[Battle Prayer, A]
[Beautifying the Flag]
[Better Thing, The]
[Big Deeds, The]
[Bigger Than His Dad]
[Boy Enlists, The]
[Boy's Adventure, The]
[Call,The]
[Call to Service, The]
[Change, The]
[Chaplain, The]
[Christmas, 1918]
[Christmas Box, The]
[Christmas Greeting, A]
[Complacent Slacker,The]
[Constant Beauty]
[Creed, A]
[Discovery of a Soul, The]
[Do Your All]
[Drafted]
[Duty]
[Easy Service]
[Envy]
[Everywhere in America]
[Exempt]
[Father's Prayer, A]
[Father's Thoughts, A]
[Father's Tribute, A]
[Flag, The]
[Flag on the Farm, The]
[Fly a Clean Flag]
[Follow a Famous Father]
[Follow the Flag]
[For Your Boy and Mine]
[Friendly Greeting, The]
[From Laughter to Labor]
[Future, The]
[General Pershing]
[Girl He Left Behind, The]
[Glory of Age, The]
[Gold Givers, The]
[Good Luck]
[Good Soldier, A]
[Hate]
[He Should Meet a Mother There]
[Here We Are!]
[His Room]
[His Santa Claus]
[Honor Roll, The]
[Hope]
[Ideals]
[Important Thing, The]
[Joy to Be, The]
[July the Fourth, 1917]
[Kelly Ingram]
[Life's Slacker]
[Living]
[Memorial Day]
[Mother Faith, The]
[Mother on the Sidewalk, The]
[Mothers and Wives]
[My Part]
[New Year, The]
[Next of Kin]
[Our Duty to Our Flag]
[Out of It All]
[Over Here]
[Patriot, A]
[Patriotic Creed, A]
[Patriotic Wish, A]
[Plea, A]
[Prayer, A]
[Prayer, 1918, A]
[Princess Pats, The]
[Proof of Worth, The]
[Prophecy]
[Rebellion]
[Reflection]
[Runner McGee]
[See It Through]
[Selfishness]
[Show the Flag]
[Soldier on Crutches, The]
[Soldierly]
[Spring in the Trenches]
[Struggle, The]
[Sympathy]
[Taking His Place]
[Thanksgiving]
[Things That Make a Soldier Great, The]
[Thoughts of a Soldier]
[Time for Deeds, The]
[To a Kindly Critic]
[To a Lady Knitting]
[To the Men at Home]
[Undaunted, The]
[United]
[Unsettled Scores, The]
[Waiter at the Camp, The]
[Warriors]
[War's Homecoming]
[We Need a Few More Optimists]
[We Who Stay at Home]
[We've Had a Letter From the Boy]
[When the Drums Shall Cease to Beat]
[Why We Fight]
[Wish, A]
[Wrist Watch Man, The]
[Your Country Needs You]

Over Here

Pledged to the bravest and the best,

We stand, who cannot share the fray,

Staunch for the danger and the test.

For them at night we kneel and pray.

Be with them, Lord, who serve the truth,

And make us worthy of our youth!

Here mother-love and father-love

Unite in love of country now;

Here to the flag that flies above,

Our heads we reverently bow;

Here as one people, night and day,

For victory we work and pray.

Nor race nor creed shall difference make,

Nor bigot mar the zealot's plan;

We give our all for Freedom's sake,

Each man a king, each king a man.

Make us the equal, Lord, we pray

Of them who die for truth to-day!

Let us as gladly give our best,

Let us as bravely pay the price

As they, who in the bitter test

Meet the supremest sacrifice.

Oh, God! Wherever we are led,

Let us be worthy of our dead!

Let us not compromise the truth,

Let us not cringe so much in fear

That foes may whisper to our youth

That we have failed in courage here.

Lord, strengthen us, that they may know

Our spirits follow where they go!

Why We Fight

This is the thing we fight:

A cry of terror in the night;

A ship on work of mercy bent—

A carrier of the sick and maimed—

Beneath the cruel waters sent,

And those that did it, unashamed.

A woman who had tried to fill

A mother's place; had nursed the ill

And soothed the troubled brows of pain

And earned the dying's grateful prayers,

Before a wall by soldiers slain!

And such a poor pretext was theirs!

Old women pierced by bayonets grim

And babies slaughtered for a whim,

Cathedrals made the sport of shells,

No mercy, even for a child,

As though the imps of all the hells

Were crazed with drink and running wild.

All this we fight—that some day when

Good sense shall come again to men,

Our children's children may not read

This age's history thus defamed

And find we served a selfish creed

And ever be of us ashamed!

America

God has been good to men. He gave

His Only Son their souls to save,

And then he made a second gift,

Which from their dreary lives should lift

The tyrant's yoke and set them free

From all who'd throttle liberty.

He gave America to men—

Fashioned this land we love, and then

Deep in her forests sowed the seed

Which was to serve man's earthly need.

When wisps of smoke first upwards curled

From pilgrim fires, upon the world

Unnoticed and unseen, began

God's second work of grace for man.

Here where the savage roamed and fought,

God sowed the seed of nobler thought;

Here to the land we love to claim,

The pioneers of freedom came;

Here has been cradled all that's best

In every human mind and breast.

For full four hundred years and more

Our land has stretched her welcoming shore

To weary feet from soils afar;

Soul-shackled serfs of king and czar

Have journeyed here and toiled and sung

And talked of freedom to their young,

And God above has smiled to see

This precious work of liberty,

And watched this second gift He gave

The dreary lives of men to save.

And now, when liberty's at bay,

And blood-stained tyrants force the fray,

Worn warriors, battling for the right,

Crushed by oppression's cruel might,

Hear in the dark through which they grope

America's glad cry of hope:

Man's liberty is not to die!

America is standing by!

World-wide shall human lives be free:

America has crossed the sea!

America! the land we love!

God's second gift from Heaven above,

Builded and fashioned out of truth,

Sinewed by Him with splendid youth

For that glad day when shall be furled

All tyrant flags throughout the world.

For this our banner holds the sky:

That liberty shall never die.

For this, America began:

To make a brotherhood of man.

The Time for Deeds

We have boasted our courage in moments of ease,

Our star-spangled banner we've flung on the breeze;

We have taught men to cheer for its beauty and worth,

And have called it the flag of the bravest on earth

Now the dark days are here, we must stand to the test.

Oh, God! let us prove we are true to our best!

We have drunk to our flag, and we've talked of the right,

We have challenged oppression to show us its might;

We have strutted for years through the world as a race

That for God and for country, earth's tyrants would face;

Now the gage is flung down, hate is loosed in the world.

Oh, God! shall our flag in dishonor be furled?

We have said we are brave; we have preached of the truth,

We have walked in conceit of the strength of our youth;

We have mocked at the ramparts and guns of the foe,

As though we believed we could laugh them all low.

Now oppression has struck! We are challenged to fight!

Oh, God! let us prove we can stand for the right!

If in honor and glory our flag is to wave,

If we are to keep this—the land of the brave;

If more than fine words are to fashion our creeds,

Now must our hands and our hearts turn to deeds.

We are challenged by tyrants our strength to reveal!

Oh, God! let us prove that our courage is real!

Everywhere in America

Not somewhere in America, but everywhere to-day,

Where snow-crowned mountains hold their heads,

the vales where children play,

Beside the bench and whirring lathe, on every

lake and stream

And in the depths of earth below, men share a

common dream—

The dream our brave forefathers had of freedom

and of right,

And once again in honor's cause, they rally and

unite.

Not somewhere in America is love of country

found,

But east and west and north and south once

more the bugles sound,

And once again, as one, men stand to break

their brother's chains,

And make the world a better place, where only

justice reigns.

The patriotism that is here, is echoed over there,

The hero at a certain post is on guard everywhere.

O'er humble home and mansion rich the starry

banner flies,

And far and near throughout the land the men

of valor rise.

The flag that flutters o'er your home is fluttering

far away

O'er homes that you have never seen. The same

impulses sway

The souls of men in distant states. The red, the

white and blue

Means to one hundred million strong, just what

it means to you.

The self-same courage resolute you feel and

understand

Is throbbing in the breasts of men throughout

this mighty land.

Not somewhere in America, but everywhere to-day,

For justice and for liberty all free men work

and pray.

The Things That Make a Soldier Great

The things that make a soldier great and send him out to die,

To face the flaming cannon's mouth, nor ever question why,

Are lilacs by a little porch, the row of tulips red,

The peonies and pansies, too, the old petunia bed,

The grass plot where his children play, the roses on the wall:

'Tis these that make a soldier great. He's fighting for them all.

'Tis not the pomp and pride of kings that make a soldier brave;

'Tis not allegiance to the flag that over him may wave;

For soldiers never fight so well on land or on the foam

As when behind the cause they see the little place called home.

Endanger but that humble street whereon his children run—

You make a soldier of the man who never bore a gun.

What is it through the battle smoke the valiant soldier sees?

The little garden far away, the budding apple trees,

The little patch of ground back there, the children at their play,

Perhaps a tiny mound behind the simple church of gray.

The golden thread of courage isn't linked to castle dome

But to the spot, where'er it be—the humble spot called home.

And now the lilacs bud again and all is lovely there,

And homesick soldiers far away know spring is in the air;

The tulips come to bloom again, the grass once more is green,

And every man can see the spot where all his joys have been.

He sees his children smile at him, he hears the bugle call,

And only death can stop him now—he's fighting for them all.

The Flag

We never knew how much the Flag

Could mean, until he went away,

We used to boast of it and brag,

As something of a by-gone day;

But now the Flag can start our tears

In moments of our greatest joy,

Old Glory in the sky appears

The symbol of our little boy.

We knew that sometimes people wept

To see the Flag go waving by,

But never guessed the griefs they kept—

We never understood just why.

But now our eyes grow quickly dim,

Our voices choke with sobs to-day;

The Flag is telling us of him,

Our little boy who's gone away.

We never knew the Flag could be

So much a part of human life,

We thought it beautiful to see

Before these bitter days of strife;

But now more beautiful it gleams,

And deeper in our hearts it dwells;

It is the emblem of our dreams,

For of our little boy it tells.

A Battle Prayer

God of battles, be with us now:

Guard our sons from the lead of shame,

Watch our sons when the cannons flame,

Let them not to a tyrant bow.

God of battles, to Thee we pray:

Be with each loyal son who fights

In the cause of justice and human rights,

Grant him strength and lead the way.

God of battles, our youth we give

To the battle line on a foreign soil,

To conquer hatred and lust and spoil;

Grant that they and their cause shall live.

Good Luck

Good luck! That's all I'm saying, as you sail across the sea;

The best o' luck, in the parting, is the prayer you get from me.

May you never meet a danger that you won't come safely through,

May you never meet a German that can get the best of you;

Oh! A thousand things may happen when a fellow's at the front,

A thousand different mishaps, but here's hoping that they won't.

Good luck! That's all I'm saying, as you turn away to go,

Good luck and plenty of it, may it be your lot to know;

May you never meet rough weather, but remember if you do

That the folks at home are wishing that you'll all come safely through.

Oh! A thousand things may happen when a fellow bears the brunt

Of His Country's fight for glory, but I'm praying that they won't.

Good luck! That's all I'm saying as you're falling into line;

May the splendor of your service bring you everything that's fine;

May the fates deal kindly with you, may you never know distress,

And may every task you tackle end triumphant with success.

Oh! A thousand things may happen that with joy your life will fill;

You may not get all the gladness, but I'm hoping that you will.

A Prayer, 1918

Oh, make us worthy,

God, we pray,

To do thy service

Here to-day;

Endow us with

The strength we need

For every

Sacrificial deed!

The Change

'Twas hard to think that he must go,

We knew that we should miss him so,

We thought that he must always stay

Beside us, laughing, day by day;

That he must never know the care

And hurt and grief of life out there.

Then came the call for youth, and he

Talked with his mother and with me,

And suddenly we learned the boy