a horse enlists, 1918

thanks thegraphicsfairy.com

From the WWI era (note reference to the Hun - it's a derogatory term for Germans):  a horse does his bit in this heartfelt poem..

ENLISTED
Rebecca N. Porter

I hadn't been troubled about the war,
For under the kind blue skies
I was happy, and free to roam the fields
As the vagrant butterflies.
But all in a day, the clouds grew gray
And darkened my Paradise,
For “The One Whom I Loved The Best” embarked
On the voyage of sacrifice.

And no one explained, and no one came
Through the darkness to comfort me,
And my life grew chill, and my heart grew hot
With a speechless misery.
I cannot tell how my shackles fell,
But God must have heard my prayer,
And I too traveled the watery trail
To join the boys over there.

They say that some men dread to come,
Though all that they hold most dear
Is at stake on the altar of No-Man's-Land,
'Twixt the Hun and free-born here.
'Tis enough for me, that the One I Would See
Is “somewhere among this force,”
And together we fight with a God who heard
The prayer of a little brown horse.

from Animals. [Boston: Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals]. Vol 51 No. 1 (June 1918), p. 12.