Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/104

 78 LOUISE DRISCOLL

��THE METAL CHECKS

(The scene is a bare room, with two shaded windows at the back, and a fireplace between them with a fire burn- ing low. The room is furnished scantily with a few plain chairs, and a rough wooden table on which are piled a great many small wooden trays. The Counter, who is Death, sits at the table. He wears a loose gray robe, and his face is partly concealed by a gray veil. He does not look at The Bearer, but works mechanically and speaks in a monot- onous tone. The Bearer is the World, that bears the bur- den of War. He wears a soiled robe of brown and green and he carries on his back a gunny-bag with the little metal disks that have been used for the identification of the slain common soldiers.)

The Beaeer

Here is a sack, a gunny sack,

A heavy sack I bring. Here is toll of many a soul —

But not the soul of a king.

This is the toll of common men, Who lived in the common way ;

Lived upon bread and wine and love. In the light of the common day.

This is the toll of working men, Blood and brawn and brain.

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