Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/163

 Rh

He'd burn it for ever,

Bells, belfry and vane,

That swallows would never

Come back there again.

He'd bang down their perches

With cannon and gun,

For churches are churches,

And William's a Hun.

So—mist in the hollow

And leaf falling brown—

Ere home comes the swallow

May William be down!

And high stand the steeples

From Lincoln to Wells

For parsons and peoples,

For birds and for bells! Patrick R. Chalmers

E had forgotten You, or very nearly—

You did not seem to touch us very nearly—

Of course we thought about You now and then;

Especially in any time of trouble—

We knew that You were good in time of trouble—

But we are very ordinary men.

And there were always other things to think of—

There's lots of things a man has got to think of—

His work, his home, his pleasure, and his wife;

And so we only thought of You on Sunday—

Sometimes, perhaps, not even on a Sunday—

Because there's always lots to fill one's life.