With mock solemnity that comes
From marching feet and muffled drums;
But in this drift of after years
Let us pay honor with our tears.
They dared to die, let us who live
Dare to have pity and forgive.
THE LAST SHOT
(The Independent, November 23, 1918)
With the American First Army, November 11. Amid the golden glow of the sun shining through breaking mists and casting upon the uncleared battlefield a light that seemed like a halo the soldiers of the American army found to-day the true glory of war—Peace.
At 11 o'clock this morning they fired their last shot, and the world's greatest war ended in the world's greatest victory.
For most of them, muddy and dog-tired in body and spirit, it came as something unnatural, almost incredible. They stood up in their trenches and cold, wet fox holes—stretched themselves, looked about in wonderment and beheld another wonder, as amid the mist, so close often that they could be hit with a stone, other figures stood up, too, and stretched themselves. They were gray-clad figures, who were enemies and now are—what?
