And p’raps because he isn’t very strong On talkin’, why, he’s kind o’ weak on ink; But he can work like sin the whole year long, And, crickey, how that dad o’ mine can think! When I set out from Homeville last July, He didn’t bawl the way my sister did; He just shook hands and says, “Well, boy, goodbye.” (He’s got his feelin’s, but he keeps ’em hid.) And so when mother writes about the things That I spend half my time a-thinkin’ of, There’s one short line that every letter brings: “Father will write, and meanwhile sends his love.” “Father will write.” Well, some day p’raps he will— There’s lots of funny prophecies come true; But if he just keeps promisin’ to, still, I’ll understand, and dad’ll know I do. MLLE. SOIXANTE-QUINZE Oh, a mistress fit for a soldier’s love Is the graceful 75; As neat and slim, and as strong and trim As ever a girl alive. Where the steel-blue sheen of her mail is seen, And the light of her flashing glance, In the broken spray of the roaring fray Is the soul of embattled France. Her love is true as the heaven’s blue— She will fight for her love till death; Her hate is a flame no fear can tame, That slays with the lightning’s breath. For the sun of day turns fogged and gray, And night is a reeling hell When she swings the flail of the shrapnel’s hail, Or looses the bursting shell. From high Lorraine to the Somme and the Aisne, She has held at bay the Hun, That with broken strength he may pay, at length, For the sins that his race has done; For Alsace, torn from the mother land, Ravished and mocked and chained; For Belgium, nailed to the martyr’s cross, For holding her faith unstained. Thou Maid, who cam’st, like a beacon flame, In thy people’s darkest hour, Who bade them thrill with patriot will By the spell of thy mystic power, As thou gav’st them heart to speed the dart From arquebus and bow, Give us to drive, with the 75, Our bolts on a baser foe, That we who have come from Freedom’s home Across the western wave, Such blows shall give that France may live As once for us she gave. May our good guns play with a stinging spray On the Prussian ranks of war, And smite them yet as did Lafayette The hireling Huns of yore!