The Kid has gone to the Colors

The Kid has gone to the Colors
And we don't know what to say;
The Kid we have loved and cuddled
Stepped out for the Flag to-day.
We thought him a child, a baby
With never a care at all,
But his country called him man-size
And the Kid has heard the call.
 
He paused to watch the recruiting,
Where, fired by the fife and drum,
He bowed his head to Old Glory
And thought that it whispered: "Come!"
The Kid, not being a slacker,
Stood forth with patriot-joy
To add his name to the roster—
And God, we're proud of the boy!
 
The Kid has gone to the Colors;
It seems but a little while
Since he drilled a schoolboy army
In a truly martial style,
But now he's a man, a soldier,
And we lend him a listening ear,
For his heart is a heart all loyal,
Unscourged by the curse of fear.
 
His dad, when he told him, shuddered,
His mother—God bless her!—cried;
Yet, blest with a mother-nature,
She wept with a mother-pride,
But he whose old shoulders straightened
Was Granddad—for memory ran
To years when he, too, a youngster,
Was changed by the Flag to a man!