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...nothing to say, here's a poem instead... |
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...nothing to say, here's a poem instead... |
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'''Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister''' <br /> |
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<b>Suicide in the Trenches</b> <br /> |
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]<br /> |
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<br /> |
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I<br /> |
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I KNEW a simple soldier boy <br /> |
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GR-R-R—there go, my heart's abhorrence! <br /> |
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Who grinned at life in empty joy, <br /> |
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Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, <br /> |
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Water your damned flower-pots, do! <br /> |
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If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, <br /> |
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And whistled early with the lark. <br /> |
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God's blood, would not mine kill you! <br /> |
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What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming? <br /> |
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Oh, that rose has prior claims— <br /> |
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Needs its leaden vase filled brimming? <br /> |
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Hell dry you up with its flames! <br /> |
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In winter trenches, cowed and glum, <br /> |
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II <br /> |
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At the meal we sit together: <br /> |
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With crumps and lice and lack of rum, <br /> |
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Salve tibi! I must hear <br /> |
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He put a bullet through his brain. <br /> |
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Wise talk of the kind of weather, <br /> |
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No one spoke of him again. <br /> |
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Sort of season, time of year: <br /> |
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Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely <br /> |
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Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt: <br /> |
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What's the Latin name for "parsley"? <br /> |
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What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout? <br /> |
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You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye <br /> |
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III <br /> |
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Whew! We'll have our platter burnished, <br /> |
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Who cheer when soldier lads march by, <br /> |
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Laid with care on our own sheld! <br /> |
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Sneak home and pray you’ll never know <br /> |
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With a fire-new spoon we're furnished, <br /> |
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The hell where youth and laughter go. <br /> |
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And a goblet for oneself, <br /> |
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Rinsed like something sacrificial <br /> |
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Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps— <br /> |
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Marked with L. for our initial! <br /> |
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(He-he! There his lily snaps!) <br /> |
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<br /> |
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IV <br /> |
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Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores <br /> |
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Squats outside the Convent bank <br /> |
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With Sanchicha, telling stories, <br /> |
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Steeping tresses in the tank, <br /> |
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Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs, <br /> |
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—Can't I see his dead eye glow, <br /> |
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Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's? <br /> |
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(That is, if he'd let it show!) <br /> |
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<br /> |
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V <br /> |
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When he finishes refection, <br /> |
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Knife and fork he never lays <br /> |
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Cross-wise to my recollection, <br /> |
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As do I, in Jesu's praise. <br /> |
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I the Trinity illustrate, <br /> |
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Drinking watered orange-pulp— <br /> |
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In three sips the Arian frustrate; <br /> |
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While he drains his at one gulp. <br /> |
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VI <br /> |
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Oh, those melons? If he's able <br /> |
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We're to have a feast! so nice! <br /> |
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One goes to the Abbot's table, <br /> |
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All of us get each a slice. <br /> |
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How go on your flowers? None double? <br /> |
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Not one fruit-sort can you spy? <br /> |
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Strange!—And I, too, at such trouble, <br /> |
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Keep them close-nipped on the sly! <br /> |
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<br /> |
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VII <br /> |
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There's a great text in Galatians, <br /> |
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Once you trip on it, entails <br /> |
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Twenty-nine distinct damnations, <br /> |
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One sure, if another fails: <br /> |
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If I trip him just a-dying, <br /> |
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Sure of heaven as sure can be, <br /> |
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Spin him round and send him flying <br /> |
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Off to hell, a Manichee? <br /> |
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<br /> |
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VIII <br /> |
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Or my scrofulous French novel <br /> |
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On gray paper with blunt type! <br /> |
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Simply glance at it, you grovel <br /> |
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Hand and foot in Belial's gripe: <br /> |
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If I double down its pages <br /> |
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At the woeful sixteenth print, <br /> |
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When he gathers his greengages, <br /> |
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Ope a sieve and slip it in't? <br /> |
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<br /> |
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IX <br /> |
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Or, there's Satan!—one might venture <br /> |
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Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave <br /> |
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Such a flaw in the indenture <br /> |
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As he'd miss till, past retrieve, <br /> |
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Blasted lay that rose-acacia <br /> |
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We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine. <br /> |
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'St, there's Vespers! Plena gratiâ <br /> |
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Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r—you swine!<br /> |
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