Patriotic pieces from the Great War/The Kid Has Gone to the Colors

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Patriotic pieces from the Great War (1918)
edited by Edna D. Jones
The Kid Has Gone to the Colors
1634267Patriotic pieces from the Great War — The Kid Has Gone to the Colors1918

THE KID HAS GONE TO THE COLORS

By permission of the author

The Kid has gone to the Colors,
And we don't know what to say;
The Kid we have loved and cuddled
Stepped out for the flag to-day.
We thought him a child, a baby,
With never a care at all;
But his country called him man-size—
And the Kid has heard the call.


He paused to watch the recruiting,
Where, fired by the fife and drum,
He bowed his head to Old Glory,
And thought that it whispered "Come!"
The Kid not being a slacker,
Stood forth with patriot-joy
To add his name to the roster
And, God! we're proud of the boy!


The Kid has gone to the Colors;
It seems but a little while
Since he drilled a schoolboy army
In a truly martial style.
But now he's a man, a soldier,
And we lend him a listening ear;
For his heart is a heart all loyal,
Unscourged by the curse of fear.


His dad, when he told him, shuddered;
His mother—God bless her!—cried;
Yet, blest with a mother-nature
She wept with a mother-pride.
But he whose old shoulders straightened
Was granddad—for memory ran
To years when he, too, a youngster,
Was changed by the Flag to a man!