When the clarion call of Country
Bade strong men rise and go,
Came they the first of the willing first,
In the pride that leal men know.
When the Eagle soared and its broad wings spread
‘ Bove the shores of an angered land,
Sailed they the first of the Viking first
Where the treacherous waters spanned.
When the Eagle's Brood awoke to the shriek
Of the great shells day and night,
First of the flock bled they beneath
The star-flare's blinding light.
When the lunging, torn front lines locked
And the strife raged man and man,
Swept they the first of the fighting first —
And the van of the battle van.
From the training days of Gondrecourt —
Demange — cold, wet and gray —
To the trenches north of Luneville —
To Bouconville — Xivray —
To the crater-pitted, wasted tracts
Of war-torn Picardy,
And the ghastly rubble hilltop
Where Cantigny used to be:
To the splendid days of Soissons —
The crisis of the strife:
To where giant pincers severed
St. Mihiel as a knife:
To the glorious, stubborn struggle
Up the rugged Argonne slopes,
Till the gates of Sedan crumbled
With the Vandals’ crumbling hopes.
Sweeping in conquering columns
To the banks of the vaunted Rhine —
Ever the first of the fighting first,
And the Lords of the Battle Line.