With every round our spirits sank in bodies lean and members lank.
I saw the soul of man, a cave, a wick that smouldered and smelled rank.
Men's fluid facts may wash the grime from pictures of a distant time,
But I can paint the truth in one small touch: our poets ceased to rhyme.
Such was the army's hopelessness. I understood, who once had seen
Our fading gardener rouse himself to kick and curse the wolf-cub, Life.
I would not let my feet desert, but oh the woods—the woods of home
That bent and beckoned in the damp zephyr in vain! I could not stoop
To play false in an enterprise however mad, if once begun.
Besides another miracle was wrought in me. I was in love.