Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1898-08-01
A-Sonu in the Trenches.

"A song!' cried the men In the trenches,
"A song. and well sing 1t to-day!
The Mausers spit through the tangled
grass,
The shells burst over the bay.
And the weltering fire Of a heat that is
Shoots down from the sun in the fray.
"a song!" cried the men in the trenches,
IA song. and We'll sing 1t today!
"A song of love and its skies above,
OF home and the old, old way"
They had stormed and carried Siboney;
They had died in the ambush there,
Brusque and brown old regulars.
And young checks smooth and fair
Man to man they had stood up and died
Under Old Glory there
Man to man, in the sun-seethed tide,
They had swept the hill and the foe de-
fed
And now in the trenches, side by side,
They lay with their burned backs bare,
1t was heat. heat, heat. and blazing gun;
Thirst-and the soggy trench
Pitiless shaft from pitiless SUN
Blood and the sulphur stencil,
II was blistered wound and powder sting;
Blood and stagger and reel,
And the hyena laugh of the white-ghost
thing
That leaps from Il womb of steel,
1t was volley and voiloy from Mauser
gun,
Thunder and roar from feet
And the answering crack of the Jorgen-
son
From the men who never retreat.
FL Caney lay upon the right,
Steel-armored mid the trees.
And on the left the shotted throats
OF grim Aguadorcs.
FL MORO stoou across the bay,
Gun-crownei against the sky.
And from the heights of San Juan,
The smokeless ghost-born fly.
ezA.s;z.-St HI
1t was death above and death below,
Barb wired and bleeding wound.
Thirst-and the sput Of the slck'ning
In the track of the Mauser sound,
1t was hell above as well beneath,
The heart-kiiing knowledge and pain.
To know one must stand in the door of
death
TIL ordered 10 enter again.
II was voiley and volley from Mauser
gun,
Thunder and roar from fleet
And the answering crack of the Jorgen-
son
From men who never retreat.
And now there fails a silence
In the trenches on the night,
As deep as when the dying day
kncels at the knees Of night.
silence. but more omnous
Than all the bullets are
The silence thar procedes resolve
The dusk that limns the star
Twas broken by a song that swept
The singers from their feet
From trench 10 trench Il Swelled
Above the thunder OF the feet
And living lips and dying lips
Caught up the glad refrain
In triumph rolled IL down the line
In splendor back again:
And the star spangled banner in triumph
shall wave
Ger the land Of the free and the home OF
the brave
1t was volley and voiiey from Mauser
gun,
Thunder and roar from fleet.
And then the charge Of the Jorgcns0n-
And men who never retreat
i was picket of steel or wall OF stone
The sweep Of a torrent along
The cchning notes of a victor tone
In the burst OF battle song.
They swept FL Caney as they ran.
They stormed the Spanish lair.
And on the heights OF san Juan
They placed that banner there.
O, you who die in the trenches,
Singing the song of the free.
Do You know that time and space and
cline
Are an endless sonr for thee?
O. yc who die in the trenches,
ID. ye who never retreat.
Do you know that the bars OF the shad- |
owy stars 4ui H
Are rungs for your coming feet? .
John Trotwood Moore. Columbia. Tenn. |