Page:Fifes and Drums, Poems of America at War, Vigilantes, 1917.djvu/111



khaki lads with drum and fife

March down Fifth Avenue.

Their eyes are eager for the strife

That moulds the world anew. ..

And you—and what of you?

It is better to travel a bloody track

And come home dead or maimed—

It is better to go and never come back,

Than to stay and die ashamed.

The lads in khaki sweep on past,

All straight and straight aligned.

When the rattle of drums is gone at last,

What is there stays behind?—

Not a thing remains behind.