Page:Poems, Alan Seeger, 1916.djvu/215

 I have been too long from my country's shores

To reckon what state of mind is yours,

But as for myself I know right well

I would go through fire and shot and shell

And face new perils and make my bed

In new privations, if ROOSEVELT led;

But I have given my heart and hand

To serve, in serving another land,

Ideals kept bright that with you are dim;

Here men can thrill to their country's hymn,

For the passion that wells in the Marseillaise

Is the same that fires the French these days,

And, when the flag that they love goes by,

With swelling bosom and moistened eye

They can look, for they know that it floats there still

By the might of their hands and the strength of their will,

And through perils countless and trials unknown

Its honor each man has made his own.

They wanted the war no more than you,

But they saw how the certain menace grew,

And they gave two years of their youth or three

The more to insure their liberty

When the wrath of rifles and pennoned spears

Should roll like a flood on their wrecked frontiers.

They wanted the war no more than you,

But when the dreadful summons blew

And the time to settle the quarrel came 165