Various

“ There is nothing under heaven that can take away your smile,
Oh, so wistful and so patient and so fine.
90You are tender as a woman with the tiny ones who crowd
To upraise their lips and for your kisses pout,
Still, we’d hate to have to face you when the bugle’s sounding loud
And your slim, steel sweetheart Rosalie is out.
You’re devoted to mustaches which you twirl with such an air
O’er a cigarette with nigh an inch to run,
And quite often you are noticed in a beard that’s full of hair,
But that heart of yours is always twenty-one. ”

“ We don’t pack no gat or rifle, we don’t juggle pick or spade,
Nor go stunnin’ peevish Germans in no dashin’ midnight raid;
But we hit the warehouse early and we quit the warehouse late,
And there ain’t no G.O. limits on the speed we truck the freight.
We don’t hike along the roadway in them iron derby hats
While the shrapnel punctuates the breeze and gas floats o’er the flats;
We just dodge the fallin’ cases and we slap them back on high,
For it’s just a pile o’ pilin’ in the Service of Supply. ”

“ There’s about two million fellows and there’s some of them who lie
156Where eighty-eights and G.I.’s gently drop;
Where the trucks and trains are jamming and the colonel he is damning
Half the earth and in particular the Service of Supply.
They have had a stretch of trenches, beat the Prussian at his best,
Seen their buddies fall like heroes right beside;
But—there’s nigh two million fellows from the country of the blest
Who know the cause for which their comrades died,
Who have crossed the sluggish shallows where their little life streams ran
And broadened just a trifle, you will find ”

“ Till I’d got a look at hell!
H. H. Huss, Sgt., Inf.
39 THE TANK
Oh, she’s nothin’ sweet to look at an’ no symphony to hear;
She ain’t no pome of beauty, that’s a cinch—
She howls like Holy Jumpin’ when a feller shifts a gear,
But she’s sure a lovey-dovey in a pinch.
Just head her straight for Berlin and no matter what the road,
Or whether it’s just trenches, trees, and mud,
And I’ll guarantee she’ll get there with her precious human load
And her treads a-drippin’ red with German blood.
Oh, you tank! tank! tank!
She’s a pippin’, she’s a daisy, she’s a dream! ”

“ The Rio Grande and Vera Cruz—I knew them like a map,
And now it looks as though I lose—the jackpot to a cap!
No more against a blazing sky where hard-pressed Fokkers flee,
No more where charging heroes die, my peakéd top you’ll see. ”

“ Over them the shrapnel’s song greets the summer morn—
Poppies in the wheat fields—but, ah, the fields are torn.
See the stalwart Yankee lads, never ones to blench,
Poppies in their helmets as they clear the shallow trench,
88Leaping down the furrows with eager, boyish tread
Through the poppied wheat fields to the flaming woods ahead.
Poppies in the wheat fields as sinks the summer sun,
Broken, bruised and trampled—but the bitter day is won;
Yonder in the woodland where the flashing rifles shine,
With their poppies in their helmets, the front files hold the line.
Poppies in the wheat field ”

“ As I wakens from my restless sleep here in my bed o’ mud,
’N’ I pull my blankets tighter underneath my shelter fly,
An’ I listen to the thunder o’ the trucks a-rollin’ by.
They’re jumpin’ an’ they’re humpin’ through the inky gloom o’ night,
’N’ I wonder how them drivers see without a glim o’ light;
I c’n hear the clutches roarin’ as they throw the gears in high,
An’ the radiators boilin’ as the trucks go rollin’ by.
There’s some a-draggin’ cannons, you c’n spot the sound all right—
The rumblin’ ones is heavies, an’ the rattly ones is light ”

“ Harold Riezelman, 1st Lt., C.W.S.
146 VESTAL STAR
The long, long march is o’er, the weary roaming;
We bivouac, yearning for a peaceful night;
I lie and dream amid the purple gloaming,
And scan the heavens for a beacon light. ”

“ Then we plug right through till mornin’, in the Service of Supply.
We ain’t got no dugout movies, nor a Charlie Chaplin laugh;
We ain’t got no handsome colonel with his neat and nifty staff,
Nor a brave and fearless captain with a flashing sword and gun
To yell, “Now up and at ’em, boys! We’ve got ’em on the run!”
We ain’t soaring round in biplanes, punching holes in Boche balloons,
Nor corralling frightened Fritzies by battalions and platoons,
107But when they yell, “Rush order!” then we get around right spry,
For the boys are up there waitin’—on the Service of Supply. ”

“ When a letter comes yuh grab it right before the other guys,
An’ yuh git a little vision of the light that’s in Her eyes;
Yuh can see Her smiles an’ dimples, an’ fer other girls you’re blind
When you’ve really had a letter from the Girl yuh left behind.
Jest a sheet or two of paper with a purple stamp or two,
But it means the whole creation to the heart an’ soul o’ you,
An’ yuh git to feelin’ pious, an’ yuh pray a bit, yuh mind,
For the great Almighty’s blessin’ on the Girl yuh left behind.
E. C. D., Field Hospital. ”

“ Me!—a-leadin’ a column!
Me!—that women have loved—
Me, a-leadin’ a column o’ Yanks, an’ tracin’ Her name in the Stars!
Me, that ain’t seen the purple hills before all mixed in the skies
With the gray dawn meltin’ to azure there;
Me, that ain’t a poet, growin’ poetic;
An’ the flash o’ the guns on the skyline,
An’ red wine—an’ France!
An’ me laughin’—and War!
An’ Slim Jim singin’ a song;
An’ a lop-eared mule a-kickin’ a limber
An’ axles ’thout no grease hollerin’ Maggie at me!
Me, that women have loved—
An’ War goin’ on! ”

“ And we’ll start her rollin’ on the road to hell,
Shove her into high and leave her, tie her bloomin’ throttle down—
We’ll say she’s lived her life and lived it well.
Oh, you tank! tank! tank!
She’s a devil! She’s a dandy! She’s sublime!
When her grimy hide goes hurlin’ through the dirty streets of Berlin,
Watch the goose step change to Yankee double time!
Richard C. Colburn, Sgt., Tank Corps.
42 THE NEW ARMY
Who are those soldiers
Who go marching down?
They’re the young fellows
Of your old home town. ”

“ With hint of Gallic skies, for my real buddy
(That’s soldier talk, and soldier talk rings true) .
As I come back,
Down the street flags adorning,
Half seeing all the pomp for sight of you,
Foretaste I’ll know of gladsome days a-borning
For us, come out of Night at last to Morning
From the Long Trail that terminates for two.
Oh, but I will come back to you, my Mother!
Wounded? Why, no! ... I will come back!
Arthur McKeogh, Lt., Inf.
149 OLD LADY RUMOR
There is nothing like a rumor just to set the gang afire,
They receive it,
And believe it,
Does it matter who’s the liar? ”

“ There’s tumultuous confusion a-comin’ down the road,
An’ the camouflage don’t nearways hide the dust,
An’ it ain’t no flock of camions, though some’s carryin’ a load
(I guess the provos winked—or got it fust) . ”

“ We like you, Infantry.
30Now us in the Artillery don’t live no life of ease
Nor yet particular security,
For the present that Fritz sends us one can’t dodge behind the trees,
Unless trees was much thicker than they be.
But we know our lot is doughnuts, Orders Home, and Gay Paree
To what you march to singin’, Hundred Second Infantry.
Oh, there’s numerous blanks in your company ranks,
But there’s two in the Boches’ for one in the Yanks’,
An’ all that he guv, you returned him with thanks,
You doughboys, you slow boys,
Here’s luck, an’ let her go, boys—
We like you, Infantry. ”

“ The sun has set. The evening star
Sends down its soothing light.
Gone are the tears; their hearts are strong—
“For God, for France, and Right!”
Frederick W. Kurth, Sgt., M.T.D.
126 AS THE TRUCKS GO ROLLIN’ BY ”

“ When a feller wearin’ eagles
Perchin’ on his shoulder straps,
Poked his head right in th’ winder,
An’ he talks right out an’ snaps,
“Who’s th’ officer commandin’
Over this detachment here?”
An’ th’ looey he salutes him,
While us rest wuz feelin’ queer. ”

“ It was inspired by mud and cooties and gas and mess-kits and Boche 77’s and home and mother, all subordinated to a videtermination to stick it through whatever the time and pains involved.
Various anthologies of war verse have appeared in America. Nearly all have consisted almost wholly of the work of non-combatant poets—indeed of professionals—who wrote smoothly, visioned the horror with facile accuracy for what it was, and interpreted well—for people who didn’t get to the war. Yanks is the work of men who got there. ”