Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MAN WHO COOKS THE GRUB, by SAMUEL ELLSWORTH KISER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MAN WHO COOKS THE GRUB, by                    
First Line: We have read in song and story
Last Line: Is the man who cooks the grub.
Subject(s): Guns; Heroism; Men; Soldiers; War; Heroes; Heroines


WE have read in song and story
Of "the man behind the gun,"
He is given all the glory
Of the battles that are won;
They are filling up the papers
With his apotheosis
And they tell about his capers
While the shells above him hiss;
But behind the grimy gunner,
Steadfast through the wild hubbub,
Stands the greater god of battles —
'T is the man who cooks the grub.

When the sky is rent with thunder
And the shell screams through the air,
When some fort is rent asunder
And Destruction revels there,
When the men in line go rushing
On to glory or to woe
With the maddened charges crushing
Heroes who are lying low,
There is one but for whose labors
There could be no wild hubbub,
And the greatest god of battles
Is the man who cooks the grub.

What of ships with armor plating?
What of castles on the heights?
What of anxious captains waiting
While the careful gunner sights?
What of all the long-range rifles?
What of men with valiant hearts?
These were but impotent trifles,
But inconsequential parts
Of the whole, without the fellow
Who must scour, scrape, and scrub —
For the greatest god of battles
Is the man who cooks the grub.





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