Fifes and Drums/Our Aim

by Louis How

OUR AIM

We have been patient: we have been ashamed,
    Through dismal days and weeks and months and years
    Insulting hands have cuffed our burning ears. . . .
    Our patience crumbled, and our anger flamed.
The spirit of the Union, never tamed,
    Jumps to the cannon 'mid a nation's cheers,
    And marches to take part among its peers.
    We aim as straight as we have always aimed.
England and Russia, Montenegro, France,
    Rumania, Serbia, Belgium, Italy,
    Japan,—we come to join in your advance!
Your foe is ours, our friend becomes your friend.
    And to you all, and to our sons, say we:
    We hate this hateful war, and it shall end!

Louis How.