FROM THE GREAT WAR
91
III
For three years now you'e beaten him,
In sky, on earth, at sea,
Briton, Frenchman, Belgian,
And the men of Italy;
He boasted he'd sack Paris,
The Marne proved that boast vain,
He names no more Verdun nor Somme,
He's beaten on the Aisne.
And now 'tis for America
To join the valiant line,
To run him from his cover,
Back to the river Rhine.
If you had plotted forty years
To murder your nearest friend,
What would you think if your success
Attained no better end?
Foiled, disgraced, bankrupt, and bled,
Despised: now God forefend,
If this be not for "efficiency"
A very sorry end.
He shall not pull it off, my boy,
He can not put it through,
He's up against a world in arms
Of fearless men and true.
—Dr. Felix E. Schelling
