The Flag Goes By

by Henry Holcomb Bennet


Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A flash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!


Blue and crimson and white it shines,
Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines.
Hats off!
The colors before us fly;
But more than the flag is passing by.


Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,
Fought to make and to save the state:
Weary marches and sinking ships;
Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace;
March of a stronglands swift increase;
Equal justice, right andlaw,
Stately honor and reverend awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong
To ward her people from foreign wrong:
Pride and glory and honor,--all
Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums;
And loyal hearts are beating high:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott's books include:

Little Women
Little Men
Jo's Boys
Eight Cousins
Rose in Bloom
Jack and Jill
...and more


Those I HAVE NOT read are in red

The Borrowed House

by Hilda van Stockum. This book is a good book, but it's for slightly older readers. It takes place during World War II' in Germany, and then Holland. It's about a 14 year-old German girl named Janna and a 17 year-old Jewish boy named Sef. Janna goes to live with her actor-parents in a "borrowed house" that was taken from a Dutch family by the Germans. Although Janna initially sees the Nazis as rather wonderful people, she learns about what they have done to thousands upon thousands of people from Sef, and has a  different opinion by the end of the book.