I will come back to you at length If I but live and have the strength. How will you like me with hair white, And wasted cheeks, deep lined and pale? It all began that dreadful night Of Parker's death, the strain and fright, The letter it seemed best to write-- From then to now I have been frail. Our ship just missed a submarine, And here the hardships, gas-gangrene, The horrors and the deaths have stripped My life of everything. Is it to prove For duty, you, though bloody-lipped, And fallen my unconquerable love For country and for you through all, Whatever fate befall? What is my soul's great anguish for? For what this tragedy of war? For what the fate that says to us: Part hands and be magnanimous? For what the judgment which decrees The mother love in me to cease? For separation, hopeless miles Of land and water us between? For what the devil force that smiles At man's immedicable pain? I have not lost my faith in God. Life has grown dark, I only say: Dear God, my feet have lost the way. Religion, wisdom do not give A place to stand, a space to live. I have not lost my faith in love, That somehow it must rise above The clouds of earth, I still can rest In dreams sometimes upon your breast. But, oh, it seems sometimes a play Where gods are picking a bouquet: The blossom of war, my soul or yours More fragrant grown as it endures.... WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE