Part 29 (2/2)

And all the evening by the lamp I read some tale of crime, Or play my old accordion With Marie keeping time, Until we hear the hour of ten From out the steeple chime.

Then in the morning bright and soon, No moment do I lose; Within my little cobbler's shop To gain the silver _sous_ (Good luck one has no need of legs To make a pair of shoes).

And every Sunday--oh, it's then I am the happy man; They wheel me to the river-side, And there with rod and can I sit and fish and catch a dish Of _goujons_ for the pan.

Aye, one gets used to everything, And doesn't seem to mind; Maybe I'm happier than most Of my two-legged kind; For look you at the darkest cloud, Lo! how it's silver-lined.

The Faceless Man

_I'm dead._ Officially I'm dead. Their hope is past.

How long I stood as missing! Now, at last I'm dead.

Look in my face--no likeness can you see, No tiny trace of him they knew as ”me”.

How terrible the change!

Even my eyes are strange.

So keyed are they to pain, That if I chanced to meet My mother in the street She'd look at me in vain.

When she got home I think she'd say: ”I saw the saddest sight to-day-- 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 h.e.l.l-fury and despair; The reeking horror of it all I knew: I flung myself into the furnace there; I faced the flame that scorched me with its glare; I drank unto the dregs the devil's brew-- Look at me now--for _you_ and _you_ and _you_. . . .)

I'm thinking of the time we said good-by: We took our dinner in Duval's that night, Just little Jacqueline, Lucette and I; We tried our very utmost to be bright.

We laughed. And yet our eyes, they weren't gay.

I sought all kinds of cheering things to say.

”Don't grieve,” I told them. ”Soon the time will pa.s.s; My next permission will come quickly round; We'll all meet at the Gare du Montparna.s.se; Three times I've come already, safe and sound.”

(But oh, I thought, it's harder every time, After a home that seems like Paradise, To go back to the vermin and the slime, The weariness, the want, the sacrifice.

”Pray G.o.d,” I said, ”the war may soon be done, But no, oh never, never till we've won!”)

Then to the station quietly we walked; I had my rifle and my haversack, My heavy boots, my blankets on my back; And though it hurt us, cheerfully we talked.

<script>