“Standing to.”

While the sleep-drunk world behind lies still abed,

And the dawn breath chills the smoking mists before,

Down the lines between in commune of the Dead,

There are eyes, that world of slumber watching o’er;

There are trenches darkly sheening readied steel,

There are orbs aglint, the darkness peering through;

And the shades of Night, the shades of Death scarce veil,

For the millions, to the Day, who’re “Standing to”

“Standing to”—in grim attesting to a Thought,

By the scars that weal Earth’s Face from sea to sea

In the pride to set the need of Life at naught

For the will to live a fancied Destiny;

Waiting, watching, till the hour of dree be gone,

Or muezzin-guns roar forth their hate anew—

O! Well may the world of Slumber slumber on,

For those watchers of the Dawn, who’re “Standing to.”

BRENTOMMAN.

70

OUTPOSTS

JORDAN VALLEY DUST

71