Hello, Boys! | Page 6

ancient sins who gave themselves for hire,
Women of weak wills and
strong desire.
And, like the poison ivy in the woods
That winds
itself about tall virile trees
Until it smothers them, so these
Ruined
the bodies and the souls of men.
More evil were they than Red War
itself,
Or Pestilence, or Famine. Now in this war -
This last most
awful carnage of the world -
All the old wickedness exists as then:
But as a foul stream from a festering fen
Is met and scattered by a
mountain brook
Leaping along its beautiful, bright course,
So now
the force
Of these new Followers of the camp has come
Straight
from God's Source
To cleanse the world and cleanse the minds of
men.
Good women, of great courage and large hearts,
Women
whose slogan is self-sacrifice,
Willing to pay the price
God asks of
pioneers, now play their parts
In this stupendous drama of the age

As Followers of the Camps.
They come in the name of God our Father,
They come in the name of
Christ our Brother,
They come in the name of All Humanity,
To
give their gold, their labour, and their love
To help the suffering souls
in this war-riddled earth,
The New Women of the Race--
The New
Camp Followers -
The Centuries shall do honour to their names.
COME BACK CLEAN
This is the song for a soldier

To sing as he rides from home
To the fields afar where the battles are
Or over the ocean's foam:
'Whatever the dangers waiting
In the lands I have not seen,
If I do not fall--if I come back at all,
Then I will come back clean.
'I may lie in the mud of the trenches,
I may reek with blood and mire,
But I will control, by the God in my
soul,
The might of my man's desire.
I will fight my foe in the open,
But my sword shall be sharp and keen
For the foe within who would
lure me to sin,
And I will come back clean.
'I may not leave for my children
Brave medals that I have worn,
But the blood in my veins shall leave
no stains
On bride or on babes unborn;
And the scars that my body may carry
Shall not be from deeds obscene,
For my will shall say to the beast,
OBEY!
And I will come back clean.
'Oh, not on the fields of slaughter
And not in the prison-cell,
Or in hunger and cold is the story told
By war, of its darkest hell.
But the old, old sin of the senses

Can tell what that word may mean
To the soldiers' wives and to
innocent lives,
And I will come back clean.'
CAMOUFLAGE
Camouflage is all the rage.
Ladies in their fight with age -
Soldiers
in their fight with foes -
Demagogues who mask and pose
In the
guise of statesmen--girls
Black of eyes with golden curls -

Politicians, votes in mind,
Smiling, affable and kind,
All use
camouflage to-day.
As you go upon your way,
Walk with caution,
move with care;
Camouflage is everywhere!
THE AWAKENING
I said, 'I will place my heart, my heart all broken,
Beside the world's torn heart, that it may know
The comradeship of
sorrow that is not spoken,
But is carried on wings of all the winds that blow.
I will go homeless
into homes of grieving,
And find my own grief easier to be borne.'
So over menacing seas I
went, believing
Where all was mourning, I would cease to mourn.
And now I am here, close to the great world-sorrow,
Here where each heart some mighty grief has known;
But from each
suffering soul I seem to borrow
A poignant pain that but augments my own.
The earth is like one vast
tempestuous ocean,

Where struggling beings fight for light and breath:
I feel their anguish,
feel each keen emotion -
Yet through it all, I KNOW THERE IS NO DEATH.
And as we toss on billows red with slaughter,
Unto each tortured, anguished soul I cry,
'There are green lands
beyond this raging water,
We shall come into harbour by and by.
Our dead dwell near, life is a
thing eternal:
And I have talked with One from that fair shore.
We are but passing
through a dream infernal;
We shall awake, we shall be glad once more.'
THE KHAKI BOYS WHO WERE NOT AT THE FRONT
Oh! it is not just the men who face the guns,
Not the fighters at the
Front alone, to-day
Who will bring the longed-for close to the bloody
fray, for those Could not carry on that fray without the ones
Who are
working at war's problems far away.
You are ALL our splendid heroes in the strife,
And we class you with
the warriors maimed and scarred,
Though you never have been near
enough the battle din to hear, While you laboured in the dull routine of
life
In your khaki suits with sleeves that are not barred.
You have offered up yourselves to save the world;
You have felt the
abnegation of the Christ:
And whatever work you do is a noble