Ten Thousand Men A Day

All the world was wearying,
    All the world was sad;
Everything was shadow-filled;
    Things were going bad.
Then a rumour stirred all hearts
    As a wind stirs trees -
Ten thousand men a day
    Coming over seas!

Soon we saw them marching by -
    God! what a sight! -
Shoulders back, and heads erect,
    Faces full of light.
Smiling like a morn in May,
    Moving like a breeze,
Ten thousand men a day
    Coming over seas.

Weary soldiers worn with war
    Lifted up their eyes,
Shadows seemed to fade a bit,
    Dawn was in the skies.
Hope sprang to troubled hearts,
    Strength to tired knees:
Ten thousand men a day
    Were coming over seas.

France and England swarmed with them,
    Khaki-clad and young,
Filled with all the joy of life -
    Into line they swung.
Waning valour rose anew
    At the sight of these
Ten thousand men a day
    Coming over seas.

Still they come - and still they come
    In their strength and pride.
Victory with radiant mien
    Marches on beside.
Victory is here to stay,
    Every heart agrees,
With ten thousand men a day
    Coming over seas.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet, born on November 5, 1850, and died on October 30, 1919. She was known for her works expressing optimistic views and moral lessons. Her most famous book was 'Poems of Passion'. Her poem 'Solitude' contains the famous lines, 'Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone'. Over her career, Wilcox became popularly known as a 'people's poet'.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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Men Of The Sea

Many the songs of the brave boys sent
Over The Top in the battle's thunder;
But mine is the song of the men who went
Over the top of the waves - and under.

Men of the sea, Men of the sea,
I lift mine eyes to the Flags unfurled -
The Flags of Victory blowing free
Over the new-born world.
And I cry 'Thank God! these things can be!
Thank God, and the Men of the Sea!'

Little it matters to what they belong,
Marine or Navy - or Merchant Ship -
To the Men of the Sea I sing my song;
A song that rises from heart to lip.

I sing of the valour that ploughed a path
Straight through the snares of a crafty foe,
Through billows raging with wintry wrath,
And over the dens of the devils below.

To the splendid heroes of Jutland Bank
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War Mothers

There is something in the sound of drum and fife
That stirs all the savage instincts into life.

In the old times of peace we went our ways,
Through proper days
Of little joys and tasks.    Lonely at times,
When from the steeple sounded wedding chimes,
Telling to all the world some maid was wife -
But taking patiently our part in life
As it was portioned us by Church and State,
Believing it our fate.
    Our thoughts all chaste
Held yet a secret wish to love and mate
    Ere youth and virtue should go quite to waste.
But men we criticised for lack of strength,
And kept them at arm's length.
Then the war came -
The world was all aflame!
The men we had thought dull and void of power
Were heroes in an hour.
He who had seemed a slave to petty g...

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Then And Now

A little time agone, a few brief years,
And there was peace within our beauteous borders;
Peace, and a prosperous people, and no fears
Of war and its disorders.
Pleasure was ruling goddess of our land; with her attendant Mirth
She led a jubilant, joy-seeking band about the riant earth.

Do you recall those laughing days, my Brothers,
And those long nights that trespassed on the dawn?
Those throngs of idle dancing maids and mothers
Who lilted on and on -
Card mad, wine flushed, bejewelled and half stripped,
Yet women whose sweet mouth had never sipped
From sin's black chalice - women good at heart
Who, in the winding maze of pleasure's mart,
Had lost the sun-kissed way to wholesome pleasures of an earlier day.

Oh!    You remember them!    You filled their...

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When The Regiment Came Back

All the uniforms were blue, all the swords were bright and new,
    When the regiment went marching down the street,
All the men were hale and strong as they proudly moved along,
    Through the cheers that drowned the music of their feet.
Oh the music of the feet keeping time to drums that beat,
    Oh the splendour and the glitter of the sight,
As with swords and rifles new and in uniforms of blue
    The regiment went marching to the fight!

When the regiment came back all the guns and swords were black
    And the uniforms had faded out to gray,
And the faces of the men who marched through that street again
    Seemed like faces of the dead who lose their way.
For the dead who lose their way cannot look more wan and gray.
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After The Battles Are Over

[Read at Reunion of the G. A. T., Madison, Wis., July 4, 1872.]

After the battles are over,
    And the war drums cease to beat,
And no more is heard on the hillside
The sound of hurrying feet,
Full many a noble action,
    That was done in the days of strife
By the soldier is half forgotten,
    In the peaceful walks of life.

Just as the tangled grasses,
    In Summer's warmth and light,
Grow over the graves of the fallen
    And hide them away from sight,
So many an act of valour,
    And many a deed sublime,
Fade from the mind of the soldier
    O'ergrown by the grass of time

Not so should they be rewarded,
    Those noble deeds of old!
They should live for ever and ever,
    When the heroes' hearts are cold.
Then ...

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Flowers Of France' Decoration Poem For Soldiers' Graves, Tours, France, May 30, 1918

Flowers of France in the Spring,
Your growth is a beautiful thing;
But give us your fragrance and bloom -
Yea, give us your lives in truth,
Give us your sweetness and grace
To brighten the resting-place
Of the flower of manhood and youth,
Gone into the dust of the tomb.

This is the vast stupendous hour of Time,
When nothing counts but sacrifice and faith,
Service and self-forgetfulness.    Sublime
And awful are these moments charged with death
And red with slaughter.    Yet God's purpose thrives
In all this holocaust of human lives.

I say God's purpose thrives.    Just in the measure
That men have flung away their lust for gain,
Stopped in their mad pursuit of worldly pleasure,
And boldly faced unprecedented pain
And dangers, without thin...

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