Restless with throbbing hopes, with thwarted aims, Impulsive as a colt, How do you lie here month by weary month Helpless and not revolt? What joy can these monotonous days afford Here in a ward? Yet you are merry as the birds in spring, Or feign the gaiety, Lest those who dress and tend your wound each day Should guess the agony. Lest they should suffer--this the only fear You let draw near. Graybeard philosophy has sought in books And argument this truth, That man is greater than his pain, but you Have learnt it in your youth. You know the wisdom taught by Calvary At twenty-three. Death would have found you brave, but braver still You face each lagging day, A merry Stoic, patient, chivalrous, Divinely kind and gay. You bear your knowledge lightly, graduate Of unkind Fate. Careless philosopher, the first to laugh, The latest to complain, Unmindful that you teach, you taught me this In your long fight with pain: Since God made man so good--here stands my creed-- God's good indeed. W. M. LETTS _By permission of the Author From "Hallow E'en and Other Verses"-- John Murray, London_ SPEECH DELIVERED BY LIEUT.-GEN. SIR A. W. CURRIE IN LONDON BEFORE AUGUST OFFENSIVE, 1918 Just before the Canadian entrance into the great offensive of August, 1918, General Sir Arthur W. Currie, during a short visit to London, delivered the following message from the Canadian Army Corps under his command: The situation is a serious one, and it is better for all peoples to know the fact. Germany has struck four mighty blows with success on each occasion, and it is just a question of how many of these blows we can stand. Personally, I think that the factor that can be turned in our favour is this: If we stop and fight the Boche, we will kill a sufficient number to make him silly, while America develops enough strength to turn the man power in our favour. The British soldier realizes that he is a better man than the Boche, and he believes that the German army can be beaten. Our men do not regard the Boche as a superman; and, remembering the crimes they have committed, we shall never take such delight in killing them as when we next meet them. Germany is simply a mad dog that must be killed, a cancerous growth that must be removed.