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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
HENRI, by GEORGE STERLING Poet's Biography First Line: Tonight I drifted to the restaurant Last Line: I never asked you if you had a wife. Subject(s): World War I; First World War | |||
TO-NIGHT I drifted to the restaurant We scribblers fancy, finding it unchanged Save that I saw no more my dapper friend, The waiter Henri. When I asked for him, "Gone to the War," another waiter said. ... "Gone to the War!" That man, so mild a part Of peace and its traditions! Debonair, Childlike, alert, and none too strong, we'd thought. He who had served so deftly, and, secure, Had walked the beaten path and sheltered ways He now was with the cannon and the kings! Gentle he was, and ever with a smile. Ah! wears he still a smile? For now his soul Has taken iron, and stood forth austere, Made suddenly acquainted with despair, And pain, and horror, and the timeless things. I called him once, and he unhurried came; And now he hurries at Another's beck Ancient, enormous, immemorial War And, past the trampled valley of the Meuse, Finds a red service in the day's vast hall Of thunders, and in night's domain of death Attends, unless he too be of the dead. And I sit here beneath the harmless lights! O simple soul War's hands laid hold upon And led to devastations, and the shock Of legions, and the rumble of huge guns, And crash and lightning of the rended shells, Above a region veined and pooled with blood! You now have part with all intrepid youth That took, in ages past, the battle-line, And in a mighty Cause had faith and love. You are the hero now, and I the sheep! And quietly beneath the pleasant lamps I sit, and wonder how you fare to-night. It's midnight now in France. Perhaps you find Uneasy slumber; or perhaps, entrenched, You wait the night attack across the rain. Perhaps, my friend, they've made your bed with spades! And I sit moody here, remembering, As careless men and women rise and go, I never asked you if you had a wife. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...D'ANNUNZIO by ERNEST HEMINGWAY 1915: THE TRENCHES by CONRAD AIKEN TO OUR PRESIDENT by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE HORSES by KATHARINE LEE BATES CHILDREN OF THE WAR by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE U-BOAT CREWS by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE RED CROSS NURSE by KATHARINE LEE BATES WAR PROFITS by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE UNCHANGEABLE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE BLACK VULTURE by GEORGE STERLING |
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