| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Departure | | By Baker Brownell |
| | From “In Barracks”
AMERICA in shuffling crowds | |
| Pelted high-voiced goodbyes | |
| Upon the ragged troop train. | |
| Muddled sound of partings, | |
| An accent here and there acute, | 5 |
| Popping, sudsy soap-sprays, | |
| A girl’s bright dress, a frantic flag. | |
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| America, shuffling, clattering | |
| To her high moment— | |
| A swelter of faint calls, | 10 |
| Upraised civilian arms, and then | |
| Curdy floculations of vague color— | |
| Drifted about the boarded station-house, | |
| Upholding it like an ark, | |
| Ever more in the distance. | 15 |
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| L Company drifted crankily down the track, | |
| Entrained in hasty coupled cars | |
| For mobilization, | |
| And left there, behind, Democracy, | |
| Slack Democracy on the station boards; | 20 |
| Left America clattering into emotion | |
| And shuffling heterogeneously home. | |
| “Emotional—not spiritual,” one said, | |
| Who, with Company L, saw | |
| A new America somewhere, | 25 |
| Waiting, unknowing the future. | | | | |
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