(The withering, mad machine-guns     Shall drop us one by one, Where the red, red streams of No Man’s Land     Gleam ’neath a blood-red sun.) (The shriek of the spraying shrapnel—     The roar and the blinding glare, And the gaping crater’s dripping fangs     Shall ope and find us there.) Not in the strong man’s tyranny     Or the pride of worldly things, But guarding clean traditions,     Unstained by the hands of kings. Not with sudden yearning,     But knowing the risks we dare, We board the waiting galleons     For a Nation brave and fair. (For a Nation bearing the battle’s brunt—     The strength of the Vandals’ blast— With an even keel and a steady wheel,     And her Colors nailed to the mast.) Not with hectic fire,     But weighing the thing we do, We cross to the coasts of the fighting hosts—     To the France our Fathers knew. Brothers in blood of old—and now—     Together to hunt and slay, Till we drive the Beast to his bone-strewn lair— An eye for an eye—a hair for a hair— And we leave him broken and bleeding there     Forever and a day. .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    . Not with vain boasts and mouthings—     But in silent, grim parade— We come, Lord God of Battles,     To the last and great Crusade. PART III. OTHER VERSES. MY SAPPHIRE. I have a sapphire rich and fair     And soft as a velvet sky, When only the stars are shining low And the heavens hold a mystic glow And a hushed world stands agaze to know     The wonderful Whence and Why. I have a sapphire that I turn     In the dark of somber days: And the darting tongues of nickering blue Flash deep and rare in wondrous hue, Sharp as the lightning, pure as the dew,     And true as m’lady’s gaze. I have a sapphire that I hold     Beneath the chandelier: And the phosphor of its azure gleam Sweeps clear as the depths of the mountain stream Where the Sun-god hurls his molten beam     In the morn of the golden year. I have a sapphire I adore—     Of varying whims and moods— Blue-black it lies with never a mark Across the dim unfathomed dark, Till there lifts the glow of a tiny spark—     And again it sullen broods. I have a sapphire that I bend     ’Neath the light of burning rays: And the flames spread forth a fairy fire, Seething and writhing and leaping higher Till they come to the land of my heart’s desire,     In a glittering, blinding blaze. I have a sapphire that I hold.     When the goal seems far away: When the lee shore churns in saffron spume. And the fluctuant ocean’s plume on plume Bears down to a rock-ribbed hidden doom,     And the sky is ashen gray. I have a sapphire that I turn;     And the clouds break, and the wine Of a glorious sun spreads east and west To where the Islands of the Blest Raise verdant shores at my behest,     And a golden world is mine.