| ‘FALL in, that awkward squad, and strike no more | |
| Attractive attitudes! Dress by the right! | |
| The luminous rich colours that you wore | |
| Have changed to hueless khaki in the night. | |
| Magic? What’s magic got to do with you? | 5 |
| There’s no such thing! Blood’s red, and skies are blue.’ | |
| |
| They gasped and sweated, marching up and down. | |
| I drilled them till they cursed my raucous shout. | |
| Love chucked his lute away and dropped his crown. | |
| Rhyme got sore heels and wanted to fall out. | 10 |
| ‘Left, right! Press on your butts!’ They looked at me | |
| Reproachful; how I longed to set them free! | |
| |
| I gave them lectures on Defence, Attack; | |
| They fidgeted and shuffled, yawned and sighed, | |
| And boggled at my questions. Joy was slack, | 15 |
| And Wisdom gnawed his fingers, gloomy-eyed. | |
| Young Fancy—how I loved him all the while— | |
| Stared at his note-book with a rueful smile. | |
| |
| Their training done, I shipped them all to France, | |
| Where most of those I’d loved too well got killed. | 20 |
| Rapture and pale Enchantment and Romance, | |
| And many a sickly, slender lord who’d filled | |
| My soul long since with lutanies of sin, | |
| Went home, because they couldn’t stand the din. | |
| |
| But the kind, common ones that I despised | 25 |
| (Hardly a man of them I’d count as friend), | |
| What stubborn-hearted virtues they disguised! | |
| They stood and played the hero to the end, | |
| Won gold and silver medals bright with bars, | |
| And marched resplendent home with crowns and stars. | 30 |
