“It is long since knighthood was in flower, There are no men today who tower Above their kind--the knights are dust, Their names forgot, their good swords rust,” We idly say. And yet, in truth-- The brave soul has eternal youth, Like the great lighthouse rising free, Whose far-flung beams guide ships at sea, God lifts above his fellow man A steadfast soul to dare and plan, A king of men, by right divine, Who in his forehead bears the sign-- He walks along the city street; Unknowing, in the fields we meet A modern knight in whose hand lies A mighty Nation’s destinies. Then say no more, the knights are gone; Honor and Truth and Right live on, And men today would keep the bridge Horatius kept--from rocky ridge Heroic Youth would still fling down His horse, himself, to save the town. Columbia calls! Off with your hats and lift them high, Our own, our sons are passing by. THE SILENT ARMY. IAN ADANAC IN THE MONTREAL DAILY STAR No bugle is blown, no roll of drums, No sound of an army marching. No banners wave high, no battle-cry Comes from the war-worn fields where they lie, The blue sky overarching. The call sounds clearer than the bugle call From this silent, dreamless army. “No cowards were we, when we heard the call, For freedom we grudged not to give our all,” Is the call from the silent army. Hushed and quiet and still they lie, This silent, dreamless army, While living comrades spring to their side, And the bugle-call and the battle-cry Are heard as dreamer and dreamless lie Under the stars of the arching sky, The men who have heard from the men who have died The call of the silent army. THE SOURCE OF NEWS FROM THE NEEDLE Absolute knowledge I have none, But my aunt’s washerwoman’s son Heard a policeman on his beat Say to a laborer in the street That he had a letter just last week, Written in the finest Greek, From a Chinese coolie in Timbuctoo, Who said the niggers in Cuba knew Of a colored man in a Texas town Who got it straight from a circus clown, That a man in Klondike heard the news From a gang of South American Jews, About somebody in Bamboo Who heard a man who claimed he knew Of a swell society female rake Whose mother-in-law will undertake To prove that her husband’s sister’s niece Has stated in a printed piece That she has a son who has a friend Who knows when the war is going to end. TO MY SON A poem, anonymous, sent to the Chicago Evening Post by one whose son’s regiment was leaving for France. My son, at last the fateful day has come For us to part. The hours have nearly run. May God return you safe to land and home; Yet, what God wills, so may His will be done.