Life, 1918-07-25 · page 22 of 36
Life — July 25, 1918 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a sentimental WWI poem celebrating a military dog and his human companion. The narrative follows a unnamed dog who serves alongside a surgeon's son on the Western Front, retrieving wounded soldiers and providing comfort in the trenches. The poem uses heroic language to elevate the dog's service—he wears a "uniform" (white with a red cross), demonstrates loyalty unto death, and ultimately saves his wounded master by allowing a boy soldier to carry him to safety. The references to "Huns," "Prussians," and vivid battle imagery ("shrapnel," "bayonets," "gas-soaked plain") situate this in WWI's brutal trench warfare. The satire or sentiment here isn't political mockery but rather patriotic glorification of wartime sacrifice—framing even a "cur" (stray dog) as deserving honor for service. For modern readers, it represents early-20th-century sentimentality about warfare and animal heroism, typical of 1910s-era *Life* magazine content.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
alas, * The War Dog H® was only a dog, but he went to war On the shell-ploughed fields of France; And loyally labored, with tooth and paw, To baffle the clutch of an iron claw, In the swoop of the Hun’s advance. Without an equipment he joined our fight, Without a commission or rank, For a cur he was, with * social blight; Yet we gave him a uniform of white, With a crimson cross on his flank. And he wore his cross with a lordly pride, As he raced through a sea of mud, Till the white of his uniform was dyed With the oozing flow of a crimson tide And his cross was a smear of blood His post was a line where the wounded piled, And his chief was a surgeon's son, A man among men, with the heart of a child, A master of mercy who worked and smiled And who smiled when his work was done. And the two toiled on for their country’s weal, Unhonored—unarmed—unsung ! A bandage, a sponge and a spot to kneel, In a torturing tempest of splintered steel, On a short hour's sleep—and a bone. The man had a mission ‘to ease the pain Of his brothers who fell and bled, And his dog went out on a gas-soaked plain, To snuffle and sniff through the mounds of slain For the living among the dead; And many a mother, who knelt and prayed At the cross for her battling son, May ever thank God that his death was stayed By the grit of a dog that was unafraid, In the cause of a cross that won, It won through the rush of a trampling host, Over shattered and heaving ground, Where a dust-cloud hung like a devil's ghost And the great guns thundered from coast to coast, Till the whole world shook with the sound; Where the hot shells screamed and the shrapnel sang To the basso boom of the guns, Where the bayonets clashed and the rifles rang With a resonant, roaring, crashing clang, In the path of the blood-mad Huns. The whistles shrilled! And the gray hordes burst From a sulphurous pall of smoke, To falter and reel, like a man athirst, Yet onward, in waves of a sea accursed, And our thin lines wavered and broke. Back, back we were bent, till a counter-blow Was launched in a turbulent tide, And khaki columns were locked with the foe, Ina dizzily-tumbling whirlpool flow, Where the billows of fury ride. Where the Fagle clawed at a Vulture’s crest And tore with his beak at a crown, There a surgeon lay, with a white hand prest To a wound in his undefended breast, When a Prussian had struck him down, But the war dog stood by his fallen mate, Then straight for a throat he leaped, And another note in the hymn of hate Was ripped from its scroll by the fangs of Fate, In a harvest of horror reaped. And a dog had reaped, in the princely pride Of a trust that should live unmarred, Though the bullets scorched through his quivering hide, Till he sank to earth at his master's side— Unconquered—and still on guard! He crouched by his own, like a brother's twin, And with blood on his bristling fur. “By God!" screamed a boy, in the battle's din, “I'm going out yonder and bring him in!” And he went through hell—for a cur. But the cur recoiled from the pitying hand That was stretched for his own relief, And snarled at the boy, in a hoarse command That even a human could understand, So he stooped for the helpless chief. He lifted him up on his strong young back, And the dog saluted in joy With a bark as clear as a rifle’s crack, Then he dragged himself on the shot-swept track Of the staggering, reeling boy. And our line went mad, to its roaring rear, With the homage of souls astir, While the trenches rocked with a triple cheer For those who had laughed in the face of Fear; For aman! Fora boy! And a cur! . * . . . Did the chief pass out? Did the war dog die, And his mission of mercy fail? He answered himself and gave us the lie, In the gleam af one swollen, blood-shot eye And a wag of his bleeding tail. Through battered Belgium and wrath-riven France, Where the banners of Britain wave, He lolled in a nebulous morphia trance, As he rolled in a Red Cross ambulance, And cheated a warrior’s grave. comicbooks.com