The Texas Way

'Twas a Texas boy and the Stars and Stripes went first' up

Vimy Height

Where death was wielding his sickle keen and hell-fires were

alight;

'Twas a Texas boy! And he led them all where the skies

rained shot and ~hell,

And the ground erupted beneath his feet like the lid blown

loose from hell ;

And he never faltered and never swerved, and his young voice

raised a cheer !

We can almost see it the way it was, though we are away

off here ;

For we are used to our Texas boys, and used to the Texas way,

So we can see him the way he charged up Vimy slope that day.

And we can look in his Texas eyes ; blue as bluebonnets are

That carper the plains of his native state like the blue field

of its star;

And we can see how his lips were curved, and can hear his

glad young voice;

Why, any part of the world was his, but he took that part

from choice;

For there were deeds for a knight to do for humanity and

peace,

The struggle battering down the door to the days when wars

shall cease,

And so, enwrapped in his country's flag, he offered his young

life up

For the ideals that his land stands for, and reached for ~c.,

drained the cup.

Aye, reached for and drained the cup, he did, almost to its

bitter lees ;

And the shrieking shells tore the earth apart and crashed

through the standing trees,

And rained from heaven about him there, and smoke-clouds

dun and blue

Swept round about him! But ever the flag he carried ahead

shone through !

And he never looked if they followed him, but ever he went

ahead,

And when they found him at night the field of the flag that

he bore was red !

Was red where it had been blue! He had lain on the field

the longest while,

But when the stretcher men came for him he welcomed them

with a smile.

And now he lies in the halls of pain where the broken rem-

nants lie;

But we know that his lips frame the old glad laugh, and know

that his speaking eye

Still mirrors the soul that's a Texas soul, that gave him the

strength to do

The thing to do in the Texas way. And the Red and White

Blue

Are above the cot where he fights his fight to win from the

halls of pain;

And he will win, and will come back yet to the Texas sky and

plain;

But of the charge and fight and all that happened that glory

day.

He will say nothing at all, at all, for that is the Texas way.

Poems for Declamation Table of Conten