{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/americas-welcome-home",
 "title": "America’s Welcome Home",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 127,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16229",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16134",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10679",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3525",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9372",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/toilingoffelixan00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoutofdoors0000vand",
   "https://archive.org/details/thyseaisgreatour00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/chosenpoems0000vand"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 65,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, gallantly they fared forth in khaki and in blue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "America’s crusading host of warriors bold and true;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They battled for the rights of man beside our brave Allies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now they’re coming home to us with glory in their eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, it’s home again, and home again, America for me!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Our hearts are turning home again and there we long to be,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In our beautiful big country beyond the ocean bars,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Our boys have seen the Old World as none have seen before.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They know the grisly horror of the German gods of war:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The noble faith of Britain and the hero-heart of France,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The soul of Belgium’s fortitude and Italy’s romance.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They bore our country’s great word across the rolling sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“America swears brotherhood with all the just and free.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They wrote that word victorious on fields of mortal strife,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And many a valiant lad was proud to seal it with his life.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, welcome home in Heaven’s peace, dear spirits of the dead!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And welcome home ye living sons America hath bred!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lords of war are beaten down, your glorious task is done;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You fought to make the whole world free, and the victory is won.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now it’s home again, and home again, our hearts are turning west,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all the lands beneath the sun America is best.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We’re going home to our own folks, beyond the ocean bars,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}