Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/172

 146 HERBERT KAUFMAN

��THE HELL-GATE OF SOISSONS

My name is Darino, the poet. You have heard?

Oui, Comedie Fran9aise. Perchance it has happened, mon ami, you know of

my unworthy lays. Ah, then, you must guess how my fingers are itching

to talk to a pen ; For I was at Soissons, and saw it, the death of the

twelve Englishmen.

My leg, malheureusement, I left it behind on the

banks of the Aisne. Regret? I would pay with the other to witness

their valor again. A trifle, indeed, I assure you, to give for the honor

to tell How that handful of British, undaunted, went into

the Gateway of Hell.

Let me draw you a plan of the battle. Here we

French and your Engineers stood ; Over there a detachment of German sharpshooters

lay hid in a wood.

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