Part 1 (1/2)
Over Here.
by Edgar A. Guest.
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, G.o.d! 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 s.h.i.+p 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 sh.e.l.ls, No mercy, even for a child, As though the imps of all the h.e.l.ls 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
G.o.d 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-- Fas.h.i.+oned 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 G.o.d's second work of grace for man.
Here where the savage roamed and fought, G.o.d sowed the seed of n.o.bler 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 sh.o.r.e 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 G.o.d 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!