Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/217

Rh A poilu with no face at all. Far better in the fight to fall Than go through life like that, I think. Poor fellow! how he made me shrink. No face. Just eyes that seemed to stare At me with anguish and despair. This ghastly war! I’m almost cheered To think my son who disappeared, My boy so handsome and so gay, Might have come home like him to-day.”

I’m dead. I think it’s better to be dead When little children look at you with dread; And when you know your coming home again Will only give the ones who love you pain. Ah! who can help but shrink? One cannot blame. They see the hideous husk, not, not the flame Of sacrifice and love that burns within; While souls of satyrs, riddled through with sin, Have bodies fair and excellent to see. Mon Dieu! how different we all would be If this our flesh was ordained to express Our spirit’s beauty or its ugliness.

(Oh, you who look at me with fear to-day, And shrink despite yourselves, and turn away– It was for you I suffered woe accurst; For you I braved red battle at its worst; For you I fought and bled and maimed and slew; For you, for you! For you I faced hell-fury and despair;