h 3545 
 
 /.fl895 
 
 F8 
 
 1919 
 
 Copy I 
 
 .-IE FUNSTON 
 1.0UBLE TRACK 
 
 WILLARD WATTLES 
 
THE FUNSTON DOUBLE TRACK 
 AND OTHER VERSES 
 
 h 
 
 PRIVATE WILLARD WATTLES 
 
 Tenth Sanitary Train. Tenth Division, 
 CAMP FUNSTON, KANSAS 
 
 MEMBER OF THE VIGILANTES 
 
 MANHATTAN, KANSAS 
 
 N. A. CRAWFORD 
 
 1919 
 
'\4 
 
 \ 
 
 V 
 
 Copyright. 1919, 
 by N. A. Crawford 
 
 ©CL/,51080S 
 
 EB -' 1919 
 
TO MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD: 
 
 A SOLDIER IN DISCIPLINE BUT A 
 FATHER IN AFFECTION, HE HAS 
 BUILT THE ARMY OF DEMOCRACY 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The proceeds of the sale of this booklet will 
 be devoted to the establishment of a Kansas 
 Poetry Prize, competition for which will be open 
 to natives of Kansas. 
 
 The verses in this booklet appeared from time 
 to time, during and after the war, in the Kansas 
 City Star, the Springfield Republican^ the Bos- 
 ton Evening Transcript^ the Philadelphia Public 
 Ledger, and Trench and Gamp-, also in Fifes and 
 Drums, the contributors to which were The Vigi- 
 lantes and which was published by George H. 
 Doran Company. Grateful acknowledgement is 
 made to the original publishers for permission 
 to reprint the material. 
 
 Special appreciation is extended to the Kansas 
 City Star and to Mr. L. P. Wilford. artist on its 
 staff, for the use of the drawing which appears 
 on the cover. 
 
/THE FUNSTON DOUBLE TRACK 
 
 {On the way to Funston, when troop trains pass, 
 the men going in different directions reach out- 
 and slap hands) 
 
 The trains that move to Funston 
 
 Run on a double track, 
 And fast as new recruits go down 
 
 The old recruits come back; 
 And some are clad in khaki 
 
 And some are queerly dressed 
 In all the odd disguises 
 
 Of gaudy shirt and vest. 
 
 The trains that come from Funston 
 
 Go rushing to the east 
 Across the greening corn land 
 
 Where harvesting has ceased; 
 And every train that passes 
 
 Is thunderous with noise, 
 Each window overflowing 
 
 With ruddy, laughing boys. 
 
 The trains that go to Funston 
 
 Move steadily to the west 
 Freighted with equal cheering, 
 
 With equal honor blessed ; 
 And as the trains are passing 
 
 The men reach out their hands 
 And at the touch electric 
 
 Each rookie understands. 
 
1 
 
 "You'll like it, boy, you'll like it," j 
 
 The lads in khaki shout ; 
 **Hey, bo, where are you going?" J 
 
 "Don't know; we'll soon find out." ' 
 
 A touch, a laugh, a passing, ! 
 
 "I'll meet you coming back," ; 
 
 Where trains go down to Funston ] 
 
 Upon the double track. 
 
UPON THE HILLS OF FUNSTON 
 
 Upon the hills of Funston the yellow prim- 
 rose glows, 
 
 And tangled in the grasses is the shy, four- 
 petaled rose, 
 
 With its golden dust of pollen and the wild 
 bees hurrying 
 
 Through the green aisles of young summer 
 like small, blazing suns a-wing. 
 
 Upon the hills of Funston the grass grows 
 long and deep. 
 
 And there are pleasant places where a man 
 might fall asleep; 
 
 Where overhead the white clouds go careen- 
 ing down the sky. 
 
 And it never seems at Funston that a man 
 could ever die. 
 
 Upon the hills of Funston there are patient 
 ranks of brown. 
 
 Where lads with guns and bayonets go 
 marching up and down; 
 
 There's a splendor rests upon them from the 
 tender, brooding skies. 
 
 And the ringing sword of freedom is the an- 
 swer of their eyes. 
 
 Upon the hills of Funston the meadowlarks 
 
 swing low 
 
 But there are hills in Flanders where the lads 
 
 in brown will go, 
 
And many pleasant places in the sunny fields 
 of France 
 
 Where a man may rest him quiet and be mer- 
 ry of the chance. 
 
 Upon the hills of Funston, in the sun and 
 wind and rain, 
 
 The sowing of our parents in their darkest 
 hours of pain 
 
 Bears its golden, laughing harvest out of 
 which the perfect Bread 
 
 Shall be broken for the nations that are call- 
 ing to be fed. 
 
 How beautiful, how beautiful the brown and 
 
 dusty feet 
 Of those who bring glad tidings that shall 
 
 make the whole world sweet; 
 And there upon the Funston hills the doom 
 
 of Hate is sealed, 
 Where the patient lines of khaki tramp across 
 
 a rain-drenched field. 
 
 ("The Funston Double Track" and Upon tba Hills of Funston" have been 
 set to music by Elizabeth Uhls Liadsey, Overland Park, Kansas.) 
 
 10 
 
/THE DEPOT BRIGADE 
 
 I went to join the army, I thought 'twas 
 
 mighty fine 
 To be a gory hero in the very front line, 
 To mess around with hand grenades — 'twould 
 
 be amazing fun 
 To jab a hungry bayonet into a howling Hun, 
 To get my right arm shot in two and lose my 
 
 eagle eye 
 And hang my spinal column on the barbed- 
 wire fence to dry. 
 King George would come to greet me and 
 
 take me back to Blighty 
 And pin a colored ribbon on my pretty little 
 
 nighty ; 
 Then when the war was over, with all my 
 
 deeds bewilderin' 
 rd scare into coniption fits my children's 
 
 children's children. 
 
 And so I came to Funston, — ^the weather 
 
 went to zero. 
 And underneath the shower-bath I hardly 
 
 looked a hero. 
 They stuck me in the kitchen, I mounted 
 
 guard all night. 
 And I was such an Ichabod my clothes they 
 
 looked a fright. 
 I scrubbed the hall a dozen times and fin- 
 ished up the floor ; 
 The corporal, he came along and said, "Now 
 
 scrub some more." 
 They bawled me out at reveille, they nagged 
 
 me at retreat, 
 
 11 
 
They made remarks I really think I'd better 
 not repeat; 
 
 But worst of all their insults — alas, the sorry 
 trade — 
 
 They turned at last and stuck me in the De- 
 pot Brigade. 
 
 Now all the friends I ever had are fighting 
 Huns in France, 
 
 TheyVe raised Old Glory to the winds in 
 Pershing's great advance. 
 
 They've died in German dug-outs, they've 
 given lives to save 
 
 Some other wounded fellow from a muddy 
 Flanders grave. 
 
 They've swept like eagles through the sky 
 and won the cross of war. 
 
 Their youth is like a flaming sword, their fate 
 a falling star. 
 
 But I am here in Funston — God knows how 
 long I'll stay, 
 
 I search the printed list of dead with grow- 
 ing dread each day. 
 
 For when the war is over and all of history 
 made. 
 
 They'll say, "He stayed in Funston in the De- 
 pot Brigade." 
 
 (Shortly after the publication of the foregoing stanzas the author secured 
 a transfer to the Tenth Division.) 
 
 12 
 
THE DOUGHBOY'S LADIES' MONTHLIES 
 
 Says the Sergeant to the Corporal, "Let's see 
 
 you make a noise, 
 For someone's sent some magazines to our 
 
 doughboys; 
 Some ladies' aid society has gone and done 
 
 us kind, 
 So let's unpack our stocking, and see what 
 
 we kin find." 
 
 The Corporal to the Sergeant, he up an' sez, 
 
 sez he, 
 "There isn't many high-brows in this here 
 
 compan-ee ; 
 But what we'll do with Harp's Bazaar is more 
 
 than I can tell 
 Though they say there's lots of readin' in the 
 
 Ladies Home Journell. 
 
 The Sergeant stopped to masticate a chew of 
 
 Navy Plug, 
 "We'll use ih.2iX House and Garden when we 
 
 buy the parlor rug ; 
 An' when that Denver rookie starts to wash 
 
 his overalls 
 He kin get some nice suggestions by readin' 
 
 in McCairsr 
 
 The Corporal made two shining braids from 
 
 out his auburn hair, 
 "I think I'll rest a bit," sez he, "an' take up 
 
 Vanity Fair; 
 
 13 
 
I find my figure so obese, I really think I'll 
 
 try 
 To cut my Butterick jacket-suit from Fashions 
 
 on the sly/' 
 
 The Sergeant shook two loaded dice, and 
 
 drew another card, 
 "I learned this game of checkers from the 
 
 Youth's Companion, pard, 
 An' when I start to throw a bridge across a 
 
 boilin' canyon 
 I'll read up that new tatting stitch in the 
 
 Woman's Home Companion. " 
 
 The Corporal raised his pewter lid and blew 
 the foam away*, 
 
 "I get so tender-hearted when I'm readin' 
 Vogue all day, 
 
 I sometimes think there ain't no use of high 
 ideals an' vision 
 
 Unless my ruffled bathin' suit is genuine Par- 
 isian." 
 
 The Sergeant to the Corporal, he up an' sez, 
 
 sez he, 
 "I think that's all the magazines for this here 
 
 compan-ee, 
 An' when the boys has read 'em through, I'm 
 
 sure they'll all be pleadin' 
 To have some more good fashion-plates for 
 
 desultory readin'." 
 
 ♦It is of course to be understood that the liquid in the container 
 is Bevo. 
 
 14 
 
^ARMY SHOES 
 
 For a Sammy in the army, life is just one 
 
 round of pleasure ; 
 From reveille till taps at night somebody's 
 
 got his measure : 
 He hits the floor at a quarter of six and grabs 
 
 his clothes and scoots 
 Where sleepy, cussy sergeant chaps are lin- 
 ing up recruits. 
 They bawl him out the whole day long till 
 
 he'd like to kill the brutes 
 And every time he turns around some dog- 
 
 goned bugle toots, — 
 Oh, there's always something popping in 
 
 the army. 
 
 But it isn't kitchen duty that gets the new 
 
 recruity, 
 It isn't peeling onions or cleaning cuspidors. 
 It isn't lack of booty or the shave-tail so sa- 
 
 lutey. 
 That makes him pray in his honest way to 
 
 soon be done with wars. 
 It isn't being far from home or being far from 
 
 booze. 
 It isn't things he doesn't have, or things he'd 
 
 like to lose. 
 
 It's the shoes! 
 
 They take his clothes away from him in the 
 
 receiving station 
 And send him shivering down the line like 
 
 Adam at Creation. 
 
 15 
 
They poke him in the short ribs and they 
 grab him by the tongue, 
 
 They say he's got tobacco-heart and can't in- 
 flate his lung, 
 
 And other personal remarks that seldom have 
 been sung 
 
 By any poet I have known without his being 
 hung ; 
 Oh, there's always something popping in 
 the army. 
 
 They give him soap and water because they 
 think they'd orter. 
 
 They count his spinal column and they mark 
 him up with chalk 
 
 Till he would give a quarter just to be a 
 blooming martyr 
 
 And to punch the first young corporal who 
 gives him any talk. 
 
 It isn't beans and coffee and those peculiar 
 stews 
 
 In which you meet your long lost child or any- 
 thing you choose, 
 It's the shoes ! 
 
 I know at last the reason men are "buried in 
 their boots," 
 
 For shoes make splendid coffins for not too 
 plump recruits ; 
 
 Or over there in Flanders they will make a 
 cozy row 
 
 Of cast-off shoes with heels run down or rup- 
 tures in the toe, 
 
 •And roof them up all shrapnel-proof and cut 
 a door below 
 
 16 
 
So every Belgian family has a brand-new 
 bungalow, — 
 Oh, there's always something popping in 
 the army. 
 
 It isn't German bullets, or even doctored news 
 That gives the lonesome Sammy a fit of army 
 blues, 
 
 It's the shoes ! 
 
 I stood retreat the other night all dressed up 
 
 in my best. 
 The Captain, he looked down the line and 
 
 hollered, "Pee-rade rest." 
 I bent my left leg at the knee and made my 
 
 stummick small, 
 My right foot made a backward march six 
 
 inches to the wall, 
 I grabbed my left thumb, stared in front, and 
 
 heard the sergeant bawl: 
 "You lop-eared loon, look down and see, your 
 
 shoe ain't moved at all !" 
 Oh, there's always something popping in 
 
 the army. 
 
 If they'd strung me to a girder, I couldn't 
 even stirred her, 
 
 I moved my foot around inside a dozen dif- 
 ferent ways. 
 
 But they said the crime was murder, that I 
 should have pulled it furder, 
 
 And sent me up to Leavenworth and give me 
 thirty days. 
 
 It isn't fighting Germans, or the poison gas 
 they use — 
 
 Some day we'll paint old Kaiser Bill a hun- 
 dred different hues — 
 It's the shoes! 
 
 17 
 
/ 
 
 LITERACHOOR AT CAMP FUNSTON 
 
 Oh, all the boys at Funston are a literary lot; 
 When it comes to writing letters they are 
 
 Johnny-on-the-spot. 
 They're not so strong for Ruskin, Aeschylus, 
 
 or Charlie Lamb, 
 But they're strong as army mustard for the 
 
 lays of Uncle Sam, 
 They come into the "Y" at night in an ab- 
 sent-minded way 
 And grab a pen and quart of ink and have 
 
 a lot to say — 
 For though I never read the books they write 
 
 in such a hurry 
 There's someone seems to like them, and so 
 
 it's "We should worry!" 
 
 18 
 
^ A BOX FROM HOME AT FUNSTON 
 
 When someone gets a box from home in our 
 squad-room 
 
 Maginnis drops the mopping-stick, and John- 
 son drops the broom, 
 
 MacPherson's off in a Highland fling, and 
 Terence begins to caper, 
 
 While Sandy yanks at the cotton string and 
 scatters the wrapping paper. 
 
 Oh, here's a pound of chocolate fudge that'll 
 
 turn your whiskers green. 
 And a chicken fried in its juicy hide as brown 
 
 as a navy bean ; 
 There's angel-food so gol-darned good that 
 
 you reach for another cut, 
 A box of sinkers sweet with lard and rich as 
 
 a hazel-nut. 
 
 Here's a thick divinity-brick, so whet your 
 
 bowie-knife. 
 And a cocoanut cake that 'ud almost make a 
 
 bridegroom leave his wife. 
 Like hungry crows we perch in rows on the 
 
 foot of O'Reilly's bunk, 
 Full to the brim, but waitin' for Slim to carve 
 
 us another hunk. 
 
 "Oh, it's hurry up, you lazy pup, or you'll 
 
 never get a smell; 
 The Kaiser's strong, but Sherman's wrong, 
 
 when he says that war is — Well, 
 Maginnis, drop your mopping-stick, and 
 
 Johnson drop your broom. 
 For someone's got a box from home in our 
 
 squad-room. 
 
 19 
 
/VISITORS' DAY AT FUNSTON j 
 
 When the folks come down to Funston i 
 
 With Mother in her best i 
 
 And Father at the steerin '-wheel \ 
 
 A-sticking out his chest, < 
 With sister Mame excited 
 
 At all the things she sees, I 
 
 And Aunt Maria sayin* i 
 
 "Why! Ain't there any trees?" ; 
 
 It makes a feller cheerful [ 
 
 In a kind of home-like way | 
 
 When the folks come down to Funston j 
 
 On a Visitin' Day. | 
 
 You meet them at the Hostess House 
 
 Beside the Gold Belt Road, i 
 
 And all the women holler, ^ 
 
 "Good gracious, ain't you growed !" 
 And sister Mame is watchin' 
 
 To see if you can spare 
 One of them shiny buttons. 
 
 An' pattin' down her hair, 
 
 An' Ma brings out her knittin' j 
 
 An' says, "We've come to stay." ] 
 
 Oh, it's mighty fine at Funston ] 
 
 On a Visitin' Day. 
 
 When the folks come down to Funston j 
 
 There's lots of things to see : | 
 
 The barracks and the mess-room ; 
 
 And the infirmary, , 
 
 The smoke-stacks and the laundry, 
 
 The guns all streaked and pied, ] 
 
 Our new alfalfa patches J 
 
 20 
 
(We're farmin' on the side), 
 The Zone an' Army City 
 
 Where Father has to pay 
 Till Fm glad he's got the wallet 
 
 On a Visitin' Day. 
 
 And then behind the Hostess House 
 
 We climb up on the hill 
 An' see the golden valley 
 
 A-lyin' soft an' still. 
 With all the panerammer 
 
 Of woods an' hills an' skies, 
 It sort of hits you funny 
 
 An' gets into your eyes ; 
 For you know across the waters 
 
 Where it's all torn mud and clay, 
 There's lots of people missin' 
 
 On a Visitin' Day. 
 
 21 
 
. BATTALIONS OF THE SOUL i 
 
 O ye at home in comfort 
 
 Who laugh and love at ease, 
 
 Remember those who perish ] 
 
 To guard your luxuries, S 
 
 Who on the far-flung ocean i 
 
 Or through the smoke-dimmed trees ; 
 
 Pay with their bodies' anguish ^ 
 
 For the soul's lone victories. ] 
 
 You have been quick to strengthen j 
 
 The sinewed strands of steel, \ 
 And squat and spitting monsters 
 
 Move forward wheel by wheel ; 
 
 Across the whitened waters j 
 
 Cuts swift the avenging keel, , 
 
 And through the fields of heaven ] 
 
 The awful dews congeal. j 
 
 But not alone with cannon i 
 
 Are God's stern battles won, i 
 And not with driven thunder 
 
 We smite the shameful Hun : i 
 But with our clean young splendor 
 
 And pulses swift that run 
 
 We raze the walls of Sodom I 
 
 And hell's battalions stun. . j 
 
 What will you give to guard us — | 
 
 Not in red holocaust \ 
 
 When the torn fields are streaming j 
 
 And storms of shell are tossed — 5 
 
 But in the lonelier trenches | 
 
 Where faiths of home are lost i 
 
 And only a day of living ) 
 
 Seems worth the bitter cost? 
 
 22 
 
A song of Annie Laurie 
 
 In a Y. M. hut at night, 
 A stamp and sheet of paper, 
 
 A book, a pipe alight, 
 A reel of Charlie Chaplin, 
 
 Two boxers squared to fight — 
 These are the things you pay for 
 
 That keep our bodies white. 
 
 What are your fields and furrows 
 
 Your bursting barns of grain, 
 The haze of yellow harvests 
 
 Across the purple plain. 
 If, when the war is over 
 
 And your sons come home again, 
 The soul's last fort is taken 
 
 And faith's defenders slain? 
 
 (Written for the United War Work Campaign of Kansas.) 
 
 23 
 
/ ENLISTED 1 
 
 i 
 
 Have you heard the shiver of bodies hurled | 
 
 Chest on crashing chest, \ 
 
 When thigh-bones snap like pistol shots | 
 
 And men meet breast to breast? \ 
 
 Have you seen the feet of a maddened horse \ 
 
 Red-wet with the wine of war j 
 
 And wondered in crushing a comrade's face | 
 
 What you had killed him for? \ 
 
 i 
 
 Ever the sweep of the wave of men ; 
 
 On the reef of jagged death, I 
 
 And frozen faces like cockle-shells | 
 
 Where the breaker billoweth, \ 
 
 The outflung arms of a down-lipped boy i 
 
 With his throat shot through — j 
 
 Perhaps his shoulder brushed your own | 
 
 Or he slept last night by you. I 
 
 My fathers followed Washington | 
 
 Into the forests dim, 
 
 The blood of Warren at Bunker Hill ] 
 
 In my veins runs from him, I 
 
 When Perry crossed from ship to ship ; 
 
 They bent their arms to row, ; 
 
 They faced the Mexicans' livid hail j 
 
 In the shattered Alamo. j 
 
 The Susquehanna knew their tents, J 
 
 They perished at Bull Run, j 
 
 Shenandoah saw our dead ^ 
 
 Staring at the sun ; ; 
 
 24 1 
 
We marched with Sherman to the sea, 
 
 Starved at Andersonville, 
 And one of us died by the barbed-wire fence 
 
 Under San Juan Hill. 
 
 You cannot change the written scroll 
 
 Nor alter the charted plan, 
 Ever must moaning women quail 
 
 And man make war on man ; 
 Out of strength must sweetness come — 
 
 Out of sacrifice 
 We melt the metal and forge the key 
 
 To enter Paradise. 
 
 I thank my fathers for what they paid 
 
 On the altar of the years, 
 I thank the women who gave me birth 
 
 In agony and tears ; 
 I could not wish that life should ask 
 
 One payment less from me. 
 And the bugle-call of the arming hosts 
 
 Sets their old passion free. 
 
 25 
 
OH, BOY! OH, JOY 
 
 {Based on an incident of the Tuscania sinking) 
 
 "Oh, boy! oh, joy! where do we go from here/* 
 So the band was playing while the ship swam 
 clear. 
 
 The trip was nearly over, Erin was ahead, 
 Soon we would be tramping down the Flan- 
 ders lanes instead. 
 
 Smoke was fogging upward, the long low 
 
 room was blue, 
 While many khaki tales went round, and none 
 
 of them was true. 
 
 Then sudden came the crash of doom, and all 
 the lights went out, 
 
 "Steady, boys, they've hit us," came our cap- 
 tain's ready shout. 
 
 Groping quickly upward, each one found his 
 
 waiting boat, 
 But five of them were shattered so we knew 
 
 they couldn't float. 
 
 There was calling through the shadows 
 where one sought to find his chum 
 
 When a rocket split the darkness that was 
 throbbing like a drum. 
 
 Then the lifeboats struck the water loaded 
 
 to the very brim 
 And there v/asn't time to bother with the man 
 
 who couldn't swim. 
 
 26 
 
Then there came a cheery whistle from a lad 
 
 whose ruddy chin 
 Hardly cleared the broken wreckage, "Hi 
 
 there, fellows, take me in." 
 
 When we said we couldn't take him, that the 
 
 boat was loaded down 
 And another man would swamp us so the 
 
 rest of us would drown, 
 
 Quick he turned and gave up trying, but his 
 
 laughter rippled clear, 
 ''Oh, boy! oh, joy where do we go from 
 
 here. " 
 
 27 
 
/TO THE GERMAN EMPEROR AND 
 ALL HIS CLAN 
 
 Now that avenging armies 
 
 Hurl back your shattered lines, 
 You lift your cheating proffers 
 
 And tune your subtle whines; 
 The flail is raised to smite you 
 
 And now before it fall 
 You would avert the whip-lash 
 
 In fate's stern judgment-hall. 
 
 Across the fields of Belgium 
 
 You leave the spoor of hell, 
 We trace the Beast retreating 
 
 And mark his actions well; 
 You launch a rain of shrapnel 
 
 At wounded men in boats. 
 The while you cry us "Comrade 
 
 With blackly perjured throats 
 
 »> 
 
 We have been stern and patient. 
 
 We have withheld our hand 
 In that firm-lipped appraisement 
 
 You do not understand ; 
 Now you shall have our answer 
 
 In storm of belching shell : 
 "No covenant with devils, 
 
 No compromise with Hell !" 
 
 28 
 
J. IN A Y. M. HUT AT FUNSTON 
 
 I have heard America singing 
 In deep, full-throated choruses, 
 I have seen the youth of my country 
 Lift up the banner of their fathers 
 And with the sword of laughter achieve a 
 silent honor. 
 
 There are those who arose in the dawning 
 and kissed and parted, 
 
 Who never again shall hear the cricket re- 
 plying 
 
 Out of the dim-lit midnight ; 
 
 There are those who have seen 
 
 The lilt of a head and the backward glance 
 of assurance turned in the doorway, with 
 the old, old gesture of boyhood ; 
 
 There are those who shall plow all day in a 
 motionless furrow. 
 
 But I have heard the gathering of natural, 
 melodious laughter; 
 
 And I know that no nation, no matter how 
 haughty. 
 
 Can stand in the hour when the young, swift 
 men of my country 
 
 Come to the final ambush laughing and sing- 
 ing. 
 
 (Written in May, 1918.) 
 
 29 
 
AUTUMN HILLS OF FUNSTON 
 
 {To the memory of Lieutenant Robert C. Westman 
 of Massachusetts, killed in action August 10, 1918) 
 
 Across the hills of Funston the autumn rains 
 have swept, 
 
 And silent are the grasses where the tiny 
 creatures crept; 
 
 Brown and red and yellow are the hollov/s 
 of the hills, 
 
 And violet the twilight where the waning sun- 
 set fills 
 
 All the little vales and gullies where the 
 prairie roses glowed 
 
 In early June in Funston beside the trampled 
 road. 
 
 For yesterday the word came from the sister 
 
 of a friend. 
 "Bob died in France in August," were the 
 
 simple words she penned 
 Yet they turned my heart to ashes and they 
 
 drew across the sky 
 A veil that clouds the sunshine till the day I 
 
 come to die ; 
 I could have spared a hundred from the store 
 
 of friends I keep 
 If only death had lifted the sickle from this 
 
 sleep. 
 
 O autumn hills of Funston where I wait a 
 prisoner 
 
 With hands and feet so fettered that I can- 
 not even stir, 
 
 30 
 
The glory of the summer and the promise of 
 the spring 
 
 Are smit with frost of autumn and with black- 
 ened withering; 
 
 There's a new made grave in Alsace where 
 the sudden poppies start 
 
 But it's autumn here in Funston and it's win- 
 ter in my heart. 
 
 31 
 
LADS OF THE KHAKI RETURNING 
 
 You tell me the war is soon over, 
 
 That Hunland has crumbled down 
 And peace in triumphant advances 
 
 Has won through each flaming town. 
 I greet you, rejoicer, with gladness, 
 
 Yet mine is the harder fate, 
 For peace with her banners and bugles 
 
 Has come to me too late. 
 
 In a grave on the Lorraine sector 
 
 Where I cannot know even the place, 
 Lies quiet a torn young body, 
 
 My lad of the shining face. 
 He rose in the hour of our anguish 
 
 With his eyes on the ultimate star; 
 Now never again may I greet him. 
 
 He has wandered so far. 
 
 O honor and beauty and splendor 
 
 Of manhood as clean as the wind, 
 O hands that were hearty to welcome, 
 
 O Roland whose trumpet was thinned, 
 Who blew in the beleaguered passes 
 
 The horn of our desperate chance. 
 Whose faith and whose body were white as 
 
 The lilies of France 1 
 
 The lads of the khaki returning 
 
 March down the long lanes of the flag, 
 And some of their coat-sleeves are empty. 
 
 And some are on crutches that drag; 
 They are back to the home of their fathers, 
 
 They have stormed the battalions of Hate, 
 Yet one face of gay laughter is absent — 
 
 Peace, you are late, you are late! 
 
 32 
 
y^THE WAR AT HOME 
 
 God of our fathers, with bowed hearts we 
 
 come 
 In this glad hour when the unscathed rejoices ; 
 Strike Thou each little boaster awed and 
 
 dumb 
 Before the flame of Pentecostal voices. 
 Our youth has stormed the hosts of hell and 
 
 won, 
 Yet we who pay the price of their oblation 
 Know that the greater war is just begun 
 Which makes humanity the nation's Nation. 
 
 33 
 
^ 
 
 PRAYER IN TIME OF VICTORY 
 
 God of our fathers, Who hast called once 
 
 more 
 Our far-flung legions to the parent shore 
 Where England guards the gateway of the 
 
 seas 
 And France upholds man's old equalities, 
 Where Belgium bleeds beneath the steady 
 
 stars 
 And Serbia flames through freedom's ava- 
 tars, 
 Where grace of Florence and the hills of 
 
 Rome 
 Still lift the cross to fling helFs cohorts home, 
 Grant Thou, our God Who nerved Cromwell 
 
 with steel, 
 In Maenad forms cried loud A has Bastile! 
 Who breathed through Garibaldi and Rous- 
 seau 
 And lifted Lincoln to prove a nation's woe, — 
 That we not lightly overthrow the suns 
 Too young, too proud, for all our belching 
 guns. 
 
 Remember Thou the agony of Thy cross 
 Which turned to triumph all the bitter loss. 
 America runs swift upon appointed feet . . . 
 Stay Thou our steps lest they become too 
 
 fleet. 
 Break Thou our backs and crown our brows 
 
 with pain, 
 Lest we become as those that we have slain ; 
 And then in faith of love's great victories 
 Broken with wonder fling us to our knees. 
 
 34 
 
OTHER BOOKS BY WILLARD WATTLES 
 
 Songs from the Hill. University Book Store, 
 
 Lawrence, Kansas, 
 Sunflowers, A Book of Kansas Poems. A. C. 
 
 McClurg & Company, Chicago. 
 Lanterns in Gethsemane. E. P. Button & Com- 
 pany, 681 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 ■I 
 
 e 014 131 831 7 
 
 *•< .