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young and flighty--she's the
girl who loves our boy.
A Patriotic Creed
To serve my country day by day
At any humble post I may;
To
honor and respect her Flag,
To live the traits of which I brag;
To be
American in deed
As well as in my printed creed.
To stand for truth and honest toil,
To till my little patch of soil
And
keep in mind the debt I owe
To them who died that I might know

My country, prosperous and free,
And passed this heritage to me.
I must always in trouble's hour
Be guided by the men in power;
For
God and country I must live,
My best for God and country give;
No
act of mine that men may scan
Must shame the name American.
To do my best and play my part,
American in mind and heart;
To
serve the flag and bravely stand
To guard the glory of my land;
To
be American in deed,
God grant me strength to keep this creed.
His Room
His room is as it used to be
Before he went away,
The walls still
keep the pennants he
Brought home but yesterday.
The picture of
his baseball team
Still holds its favored spot,
And oh, it seems a
dreadful dream
This age of shell and shot!
His golf clubs in the corner stand;
His tennis racket, too,
That once
the pressure of his hand
In times of laughter knew
Is in the place it
long has kept
For us to look upon.
The room is as it was, except


The boy, himself, has gone.
The pictures of his girls are here,
Still smiling as of yore,
And
everything that he held dear
Is treasured as before.
Into his room his
mother goes
As usual, day by day,
And cares for it, although she
knows
Our boy is far away.
We keep it as he left it, when
He bade us all good-bye,
Though I
confess that, now and then,
We view it with a sigh.
For never night
shall thrill with joy
Nor day be free from gloom
Until once more
our soldier boy
Shall occupy his room.
Envy
It's a bigger thing you're doing than the most of us have done; We have
lived the days of pleasure; now the gray days have begun, And upon
your manly shoulders fall the burdens of the strife; Yours must be the
sacrifices of the trial time of life. Oh, I don't know how to say it, but I'll
never think of you Without wishing I were sharing in the work you
have to do.
I have never known a moment that was fraught with real care, Save the
hurts and griefs of sorrow that all mortals have to bear; With the gay
and smiling marchers I have tramped on pleasant ways, And have paid
with feeble service for the gladness of my days. But to you has come a
summons, yours are days of sacrifice, And for all life has of sweetness
you must pay a bitter price.
Men have fought and died before me, men must fight and die to-day, I
have merely taken pleasures for which others had to pay; I have been a
man of laughter, there's no path my feet have made, I have merely been
a marcher in life's gaudy dress parade. But you wear the garb of service,
you have splendid deeds to do, You shall sound the depths of manhood,
and my boy, I envy you.
For Your Boy and Mine

Your dream and my dream is not that we shall rest,
But that our
children after us shall know life at its best; For all we care about
ourselves--a crust of bread or two, A place to sleep and clothes to wear
is all that we'd pursue. We'd tramp the world on sunny days, both light
of heart and mind, And give no thought to days to come or days we
leave behind.
Your dream and my dream is not that we shall play,
But that our
children after us shall tread a merry way. We brave the toil of life for
them, for them we clamber high, And if 'twould spare them hurt and
pain, for them we'd gladly die. If we had but ourselves to serve, we'd
quit the ways of pride And with the simplest joys of earth we'd all be
satisfied.
The best for them is what we dream. Our little girls and boys Must
know the finest life can give of comforts and of joys. They must be
shielded well from woe and kept secure from care, And if we could,
upon our backs, their burdens we would bear. And so once more we
rise to-day to face the battle zone That those who follow us may know
the Flag that we have known.
Your dream and my dream is not that we shall live;
The greatest joys
we hope to claim are those that we shall give. We face the heat and
strife of life, its battle and its toil That those who follow