Over Here

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Over Here, by Edgar A. Guest
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Title: Over Here
Author: Edgar A. Guest
Release Date: September 2, 2005 [eBook #16632]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVER HERE***
E-text prepared by Pat Saumell and Chuck Greif
OVER HERE
by
EDGAR A. GUEST
Author of "A Heap o' Livin'" "Just Folks"
The Reilly & Britton Co.?Chicago
1918
To the Mothers Over Here
INDEX
Alarm, The?America?April Thoughts?As It Looks to the Boy?Battle Prayer, A?Beautifying the Flag?Better Thing, The?Big Deeds, The?Bigger Than His Dad?Boy Enlists, The?Boy's Adventure, The?Call, The?Call to Service, The?Change, The?Chaplain, The?Christmas, 1918?Christmas Box, The?Christmas Greeting, A?Complacent Slacker, The?Constant Beauty?Creed, A?Discovery of a Soul, The?Do Your All?Drafted?Duty?Easy Service?Envy?Everywhere in America?Exempt?Father's Prayer, A?Father's Thoughts, A?Father's Tribute, A?Flag, The?Flag on the Farm, The?Fly a Clean Flag?Follow the Flag?For Your Boy and Mine?Friendly Greeting, The?From Laughter to Labor?Future, The?General Pershing?Girl He Left Behind, The?Glory of Age, The?Gold Givers, The?Good Luck?Good Soldier, A?Hate?Here We Are!?His Room?His Santa Claus?Honor Roll, The?Hope?I Follow a Famous Father?Ideals?If He Should Meet a Mother There?Important Thing, The?Joy to Be, The?July the Fourth, 1917?Kelly Ingram?Life's Slacker?Living?Memorial Day?Mother Faith, The?Mother on the Sidewalk, The?Mothers and Wives?My Part?New Year, The?Next of Kin?Our Duty to Our Flag?Out of It All?Over Here?Patriot, A?Patriotic Creed, A?Patriotic Wish, A?Plea, A?Prayer, A?Prayer, 1918, A?Princess Pats, The?Proof of Worth, The?Prophecy?Rebellion?Reflection?Runner McGee?See It Through?Selfishness?Show the Flag?Soldier on Crutches, The?Soldierly?Spring in the Trenches?Struggle, The?Sympathy?Taking His Place?Thanksgiving?Things That Make a Soldier Great, The?Thoughts of a Soldier?Time for Deeds, The?To a Kindly Critic?To a Lady Knitting?To the Men at Home?Undaunted, The?United?Unsettled Scores, The?Waiter at the Camp, The?Warriors?War's Homecoming?We Need a Few More Optimists?We've Had a Letter From the Boy?We Who Stay at Home?When the Drums Shall Cease to Beat?Why We Fight?Wish, A?Wrist Watch Man, The?Your Country Needs You

Over Here
Pledged to the bravest and the best,?We stand, who cannot share the fray,?Staunch for the danger and the test.?For them at night we kneel and pray.?Be with them, Lord, who serve the truth,?And make us worthy of our youth!
Here mother-love and father-love?Unite in love of country now;?Here to the flag that flies above,?Our heads we reverently bow;?Here as one people, night and day,?For victory we work and pray.
Nor race nor creed shall difference make,?Nor bigot mar the zealot's plan;?We give our all for Freedom's sake,?Each man a king, each king a man.?Make us the equal, Lord, we pray?Of them who die for truth to-day!
Let us as gladly give our best,?Let us as bravely pay the price?As they, who in the bitter test?Meet the supremest sacrifice.?Oh, God! Wherever we are led,?Let us be worthy of our dead!
Let us not compromise the truth,?Let us not cringe so much in fear?That foes may whisper to our youth?That we have failed in courage here.?Lord, strengthen us, that they may know?Our spirits follow where they go!
Why We Fight
This is the thing we fight:?A cry of terror in the night;?A ship on work of mercy bent--?A carrier of the sick and maimed--?Beneath the cruel waters sent,?And those that did it, unashamed.
A woman who had tried to fill?A mother's place; had nursed the ill?And soothed the troubled brows of pain?And earned the dying's grateful prayers,?Before a wall by soldiers slain!?And such a poor pretext was theirs!
Old women pierced by bayonets grim?And babies slaughtered for a whim,?Cathedrals made the sport of shells,?No mercy, even for a child,?As though the imps of all the hells?Were crazed with drink and running wild.
All this we fight--that some day when?Good sense shall come again to men,?Our children's children may not read?This age's history thus defamed?And find we served a selfish creed?And ever be of us ashamed!
America
God has been good to men. He gave?His Only Son their souls to save,?And then he made a second gift,?Which from their dreary lives should lift?The tyrant's yoke and set them free?From all who'd throttle liberty.?He gave America to men--?Fashioned this land we love, and then?Deep in her forests sowed the seed?Which was to serve man's earthly need.
When wisps of smoke first upwards curled?From pilgrim fires, upon the world?Unnoticed and unseen, began?God's second work of grace for man.?Here where the savage roamed and fought,?God sowed the seed of nobler thought;?Here to the land we love to claim,?The pioneers of freedom came;?Here has been cradled all that's best?In every human mind and breast.
For full four hundred years and more?Our land has stretched her welcoming shore?To weary feet from soils afar;?Soul-shackled serfs of king and czar?Have journeyed here and toiled and sung?And talked of freedom to their young,?And God above has smiled to see?This precious work of liberty,?And watched this second gift He gave?The dreary lives of men to save.
And now, when liberty's at bay,?And