THE FIRST DIVISION.

When the clarion call of Country

Bade strong men rise and go,

Came they the first of the willing first,

In the pride that leal men know.

When the Eagle soared and its broad wings spread

‘ Bove the shores of an angered land,

Sailed they the first of the Viking first

Where the treacherous waters spanned.

When the Eagle's Brood awoke to the shriek

Of the great shells day and night,

First of the flock bled they beneath

The star-flare's blinding light.

When the lunging, torn front lines locked

And the strife raged man and man,

Swept they the first of the fighting first —

And the van of the battle van.

From the training days of Gondrecourt —

Demange — cold, wet and gray —

To the trenches north of Luneville —

To Bouconville — Xivray —

To the crater-pitted, wasted tracts

Of war-torn Picardy,

And the ghastly rubble hilltop

Where Cantigny used to be:

To the splendid days of Soissons —

The crisis of the strife:

To where giant pincers severed

St. Mihiel as a knife:

To the glorious, stubborn struggle

Up the rugged Argonne slopes,

Till the gates of Sedan crumbled

With the Vandals’ crumbling hopes.

Sweeping in conquering columns

To the banks of the vaunted Rhine —

Ever the first of the fighting first,

And the Lords of the Battle Line.