<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Stars and Stripes</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">We who in the old days -- the easy days of pleasuring --</p><p class="line">Loitered in the distant lands -- we know the thrill that came</p><p class="line">When in far, foreign places, above the stranger faces,</p><p class="line">The sight of it, the might of it, would wake us like a flame.</p><p class="line">Our own flag, the one flag, it stirred our blood to claim.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">We who in these new days -- these days of all confusion --</p><p class="line">Look upon it with the eyes of one long blind who sees.</p><p class="line">We know at last its beauty -- its magnitude of duty --</p><p class="line">Dear God! if thus it seems to us, what will it mean to those</p><p class="line">Who stay for it, who pray for it, our kindred over seas?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">These who face the red days -- the white nights of fury,</p><p class="line">Where death like some mad reaper hacks down the living grain --</p><p class="line">They shall see our flag arise like a glory in the skies --</p><p class="line">The stars of it, the bars of it, that prove it once again</p><p class="line">The new flag, the true flag, <em>that does not come in vain!</em></p></div><p class="byline">-- Theodosia Garrison.<br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/> Fifes and Drums.<br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/> (George H. Doran Co.) </p></body></html> · Great War