Hortense Flexner. Decoration for Valor. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

Decoration for Valor

By Hortense Flexner


THIS boy, who stands so straight
While the General pins the medal on his coat,
May be thinking of a frame house
On Kelley Avenue in South Bend,
Or of the misery of having everyone look at him	5
While the trumpets blare.
But if I should ask him if he remembered
Curtius of Rome,
Or Childe Roland,
Or the Stainless Knight,	10
He would shake his head awkwardly
And say,
“No ma’am.”