I Was A Boy When

After All My Years Of Playing Soldiers, And Then Of Reading History, I Have Almost A Mania To Be In The East, To See Fighting, And To Serve.

The Pallor Of Girls' Brows Shall Be Their Pall; Their Flowers The Tenderness Of Patient Minds, And Each Slow Dusk A Drawing-down Of Blinds.

All Theological Lore Is Becoming Distasteful To Me.

I Have Perceived Much Beauty In The Hoarse Oaths That Kept Our Courage Straight; Heard Music In The Silentness Of Duty; Found Peace Where Shell-storms Spouted Reddest Spate.

Dead Men May Envy Living Mites In Cheese, Or Good Germs Even. Microbes Have Their Joys, And Subdivide, And Never Come To Death.