Poems (Kennedy)/Queen of Songs
QUEEN OF SONGS
THEY sang the new songs when they marched— That Scotch and English host—Down through the blossomed fields of France Where stalked war's haggard ghost.The new songs and the lilting airs Of dance-halls left behind,And rag-time of the cabarets Filled every drifting wind.
But in the trenches, watching foes As lions watch their quarry,They sang with serious lips and eyes The old song, "Annie Laurie."It fitted each dear homing thought That was of life a part—"Annie" was sweetheart, mother, wife, With answer for each heart.
For through the lapse of many wars Where Right has battled Wrong,The lyric of the Scottish hills Has been the soldiers' song.They sang it with the "Iron Duke" On Waterloo's red plain,And waked Crimean echoes up With its sweet, haunting strain.
And when they marched the Afric sands, Outnumbered man to man, They sang it, face to face with death, With Kitchener in Soudan.And so today "the fairest face" Comes to the soldiers' dreamOn music of the drifting tune Where allied banners stream.