Billy Khaki

Marching somewhat out of order

  when the band is cock-a-hoop,

There's a lilting kind of magic in the swagger

  of the troop,

Swinging all aboard the steamer with her

  nose toward the sea.

What is calling, Billy Khaki, that you're foot-

  ing it so free?

Though his lines are none too level,

  And he lacks a bit of style.

And he's swanking like the devil

  Where the women wave and smile,

He will answer with a rifle

  Trim and true from stock to bore,

Where the comrades crouch and stifle

  In the reeking pit of war.

What is calling, Billy Khaki? There is

  thunder down the sky,

And the merry magpie bugle splits the morn-

  ing with its cry,

While your feet are beating rhythms up the

  dusty hills and down,

And the drums are all a-talking in the hollow

  of the town.

Billy Khaki, is't the splendor of the song the

  kiddies sing,

Or the whipping of the flags aloft that sets

  your heart a-swing?

Is't the cheering like a paean of the toss-

  ing, teeming crowds,

Or the boom of distant cannon flatly bumping

  on the clouds ?

What's calling, calling, Billy? 'Tis the rattle

   far away

Of the cavalry at gallop and artillery in play;

'Tis the great gun's fierce concussion, and the

  smell of seven hells

When the long ranks go to pieces in the

  sneezing of the shells.

But your eyes are laughing, Billy, and a

  ribald song you sing,

While the old men sit and tell us war it is a

  ghastly thing,

When the swift machines are busy and the

  grim, squat fortress nocks

At your bolts as vain as eggs of gulls that spatter on the rocks.

When the horses sweep upon you to complete

  a sudden rout,

Or in fire and smoke and fury some brave

  regiment goes out,

War is cruel, Bill, and ugly. But full well

  you know the rest,

Yet your heart is for the battle, and your face

  is to the west.

For if war is beastly, Billy, you can picture

  something worse—

There's the wrecking of an empire, and its

  broken people's curse;

There are nations reft of freedom, and of hope

  and kindly mirth,

And the shadow of an evil black upon the

  bitter earth.

So we know what's calling, Billy. 'Tis the

  spirit of our race,

And its stir is in your pulses, and its light is

  on your face

As you march with clipping boot-heels

  through the piping, howling town

To uphold the land we live in, and to pull a

  tyrant down.

Thou his lines are none too level,

  And he's not a whale for style,

And he's swanking like the devil

  When the women wave and smile

He will answer with a rifle,

  Trim and true from stuck to bore,

When the comrades sit and stifle

  In the smoking pit of war.