| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Freebourne’s Rifle | | By Baker Brownell |
| | From “In Barracks”
“IT’S an old gun,” the major said, | |
| “But clean—give him excellent;” | |
| And pushed the oil-scrubbed gun | |
| Back on private Freebourne’s chest. | |
| “An old gun! Hell, yes!” said Freebourne, | 5 |
| When he tried to turn it in | |
| To the Q. M. for a new one; | |
| “I put two hours a day on it.” | |
| But Freebourne loved its steel; | |
| He never took the other. | 10 |
| Two hours on steel, man’s metal, | |
| Till the inner twirl of bore | |
| Carried the light in gleaming gutters | |
| Round, coiled round on itself, | |
| To lurch pointed bullets true | 15 |
| A thousand yards. Two hours | |
| Testing the severe materiality of steel: | |
| Steel thought, steel calculation, | |
| Severe, absolute in hardness, | |
| Loyal to existence— | 20 |
| It could transcend sense sogginess and flesh. | |
| Two hours the soldier loved his steel, | |
| Its truth, its edge, | |
| Its fearlessness of fact, its bitterness of line, | |
| Its certainty and decision. | 25 | | | |
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