trained--
To keep a steady heart!

To fight, but not to lower
Our standards in the dust;
To meet a savage enemy
Whose words the world can't trust.
To guard our foolish tempers--
Or keep them out of sight!
To never falter, doubt, or fear
The outcome will be _right_!

To laugh--whenever laughter
Is best to keep us fit;
To shake hands with privation
When face to face with it.
To give without complaining
Or boasting what we give;
To make this world a safer world
For those who have to live!

To part with old traditions
That hampered in the past;
To see that heart-wrung "aliens"
As enemies aren't classed,
But treated--while deserving it--
As human beings, too;

* * * * *

Just to _be clean_--in mind and soul--
That's _all_ we have to do!

AN AMERICAN CREED

Straight thinking,
Straight talking,
Straight doing,
And a firm belief in the might of right.

Patience linked with patriotism,
Justice added to kindliness,
Uncompromising devotion to this country,
And active, not passive, Americanism.

To talk less, to mean more,
To complain less, to accomplish more,
And to so live that every one of us is ready to look Eternity in the
face at any moment, and be unafraid!

IN OTHER KEYS

YOUTH O' THE YEAR

"Write me," she ordered, nodding her head,
"A song of the rippling Spring that is gone--
A song that's different from songs that are dead--
Different as sunset is from the dawn.
Sparkling with happiness, heavy with dew,
Trilling and thrilling, all the way through;
Fill it with heaven's own laughing blue--
Write it!" she said. So I wrote it--"Love's Pawn."

I spoke of the sunshine caught in her hair;
I sang of the peach blossom's pink in her face;
I mentioned the heavenly blue with great care
That colored her wonderful eyes. And her grace
I likened to that of a slender young tree
Bowing and laughing when breezes blow free;
In fact, there was naught in the Spring I could see
Save this girl who with Love would ever keep pace.

She took it and read it, that poor thing of mine--
Old as a saga, young as the year--
Drank in the similes (flattering wine!),
Then gave her verdict, "You are a _dear_;
Surely no girl ever had such a song
Written for her; I will treasure it long;
It's _so_ original--clever--and strong;
How _could_ you know me so well--in one year?"

I read it myse