Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/212

210 But now I know what it’s best to do. I’ll sell the farm and I’ll seek my kind, I’ll live apart with my fellow-blind, And we’ll eat and drink, and we’ll laugh and joke, And we’ll talk of our battles, and smoke and smoke; And brushes of bristle we’ll make for sale, While one of us reads a book of Braille. And there will be music and dancing too, And we’ll seek to fashion our life anew; And we’ll walk the highways hand in hand, The Brotherhood of the Sightless Band; Till the years at last shall bring respite And our night is lost in the Greater Night.

''My mind goes hack to Fumin Wood, and how we stuck it out, ''Eight days of hunger, thirst and cold, mowed down by steel and flame; ''Waist-deep in mud and mad with woe, with dead men all about, ''We fought like fiends and waited for relief that never came. ''Eight days and nights they rolled on us in battle-frenzied mass! ''“Debout les morts!” We hurled them back. By God! they did not pass.