John Curtis Underwood

THE TRAFFIC clears, and the crowd to the curb shifts to the roll of drums,

As down the dusty avenue the long brown column comes,

And their faces match their khaki. From Luzon’s tropic suns

They took this tan, and the glint of their eyes like the glitter of their guns

Flamed on the way to Pekin till they saw the flag still there.

They bear their faded colors past, and something in the air

Lessens the roar of the city. One gray bystander sees

The Stars and Stripes at Gettysburg and faces set like these

When death broke battle’s mould. They pass, indomitable, strong,

Wearing the deathless order of discipline. The throng

Gentile and Jew and Kelt and Hun and their own blood brothers thrill

To the ripple of their cadenced ranks; for now the drums are still

And the measured tread of feet that marched to set the Cubans free,

Falls on the asphalt like the sound of breakers when the sea

Strikes on the sands at midnight to mark the pulse of time,

And the nation’s heart-beat blends with them; the boys that breathless climb

To a lamp-post or a column’s height, the girls whose ardent eyes

Wake to a world of fighting men and the dream that never dies;

Embattled, grim in touch with them; crude as brown powder grains

That leap to life and shake the air when freedom fires the trains.

Essential, hard, dynamic, fit, and silent still they go,

Down the pathway of their duty to a goal that none may know.

Here is the nation’s last reserve, these and their next of kin

When the ends of earth are looted bare and the years of wrath begin.

For each heart guards its citadel and these shall serve alone

When millions fail and navies sink and forts are overthrown.

They pass and the city’s tumult throbs through its arteries

And fills them full of greed and lust, dishonor and disease,

And dreams insane of peace unearned, decadence and disgrace;

But still the red blood corpuscles shall vitalize the race.