Page:Fifes and Drums, Poems of America at War, Vigilantes, 1917.djvu/70

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THE STARS AND STRIPES

We who in the old days—the easy days of pleasuring—
    Loitered in the distant lands—we know the thrill that came
When in far, foreign places, above the stranger faces,
    The sight of it, the might of it, would wake us like a flame.
    Our own flag, the one flag, it stirred our blood to claim.

We who in these new days—these days of all confusion—
    Look upon it with the eyes of one long blind who sees.

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