And if posterity should ask of me What high, what base emotions keyed weak flesh To face such torments, I would answer: “_You!_ Not for themselves, O daughters, grandsons, sons, Your tortured forebears wrought this miracle; Not for themselves, _accomplished utterly_ This loathliest task of murderous servitude; But just because they realized that thus, _And only thus_, by sacrifice, might they Secure a world worth living in--_for you_.” ... Good-night, my soldier-poet. _Dormez bien!_ “One of Them” _Being in Some Respects a Sequel to “One of Us”_ I. _Wherein the bard--released from War’s confusions-- Preludes with egotistical allusions._ Six years ago--or is it six-and-twenty? (How vast the gulf from those ecstatic days!)-- When the whole earth snored on in slothful plenty (Tho’ poets cashed small pittance for their lays); When war appeared less real than G. A. Henty, And Oxo’s snaky signs were yet ablaze; When all seemed peaceful as the press of Cadbury, And no one dreamed of bombs, or bet a Bradbury; Or e’er stern Mars had roped us in his tether, Ere British guns had thundered at Le Câteau: We fitted out--my Muse and I together-- And launched adown the galley-slips of Chatto A barque of verse, full-rigged for halcyon weather, Which many a critic judged to take the _gâteau_: (Though some there were, high pundits of disparity, Who wept at our unscholarly vulgarity). We have sailed far since then; crossed our horizon; Published our loves and travels in a novel (A tale, men say, that Peckham’s flapper cries on, So that both Boots and Smith’s before us grovel); And eaten ration bully-beef--with flies on; And sheltered gratefully in many a hovel, What time we sang of guns and gore and trenches-- Instead of oysters, tango-teas and wenches. For times have changed since we wrote “One of Us”: _Et nos mutamus_--more or less--_in illis_. Muse finds herself _in urbe_ somewhat _rus_; And I--if I disport with Amaryllis-- Where once my motor flashed, prefer a ’bus; And shuddering note how vast the supper-bill is; And signing, sigh in secret for the calm, Chaste, cheap seclusion of my Chiltern farm. Yes, Muse and I are tired, and super-serious: Her damask cheek is lined a bit, and wrinkled. We are grown old, and London’s late nights weary us: While the gold wine that erst in ice-pail tinkled, Her doctor finds extremely deleterious; And mine forbids me red lips, passion-crinkled: So now we cultivate domestic habits Amongst our pigs, our poultry, and our rabbits.