Page:Fifes and Drums, Poems of America at War, Vigilantes, 1917.djvu/53



have been patient: we have been ashamed,

Through dismal days and weeks and months and years

Insulting hands have cuffed our burning ears. . ..

Our patience crumbled, and our anger flamed.

The spirit of the Union, never tamed,

Jumps to the cannon 'mid a nation's cheers,

And marches to take part among its peers.

We aim as straight as we have always aimed.

England and Russia, Montenegro, France,

Rumania, Serbia, Belgium, Italy,

Japan,—we come to join in your advance!