The months crept by at Seicheprey The growing handful stayed, With growling guns at midnight, At dawn, the lightning raid, And learned, in Seicheprey trenches, How war’s red game is played. September came to Seicheprey; A slow-wrought host arose And rolled across the trenches And whelmed its sneering foes, And left to shattered Seicheprey Unending, sweet repose. J. M. H. BEFORE A DRIVE Loud spitting motor truck and wagon trains, And caissons and guns and Infantry, All jammed together in the dark And mud and rain of northern France, Moving toward the Front. Night after night it had been thus, With days of hard, relentless drudgery Spent over maps of war and battle plans, With one or two or three, perhaps, Short hours of sleep in every twenty-four, Only what chance afforded, Till I had lost all trace of time. Day meant but heavy toil, And night dull tramping onward in the mud, Buffeted about by caissons and guns and motor trucks; Life was but mud and rain and weary men. And then—one evening ere the march began, I chanced to pause and gaze into the West, And there was all the beauty of the world Lying a-top the rain-bejewelled trees In stripes of crimson, lavender, and blue, And all the other colors known to man! Then darkness came, and I was tramping northward once again, Buffeted about by caissons and guns and motor trucks. But lo! the road that night was smooth; My feet were steady and my heart was gay, For I had looked into the West I love And there had seen the magic of your smile. CHARLES LYN FOX, Inf. PRIVATE JONES, A. E. F. “Who is the boy and what does he do, and what do the gold stripes mean? And why is his mouth so grim and hard while those eyes of his are a-dream? Only a private soldier, eh, and he holds his head that high? Putting on airs a bit, I’d say; nothing about him that’s shy. “He’s been through hell three times, you say, and turned up with a grin? He’s faced the great unknown so much it holds no fear for him? He’s seen the highest lights of life and deepest shadows, too? He knows what glory means when mixed with mud, red blood and blue?