Over Here

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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