Children of No Man's Land

by G. B. Stern

Of many lands a lord,

In no land King is he.

But the fifth Great River keeps

The secret of her deeps

For Israel alone,

As it was ordered to be....”

“Not a gleam of response? Not one?” staring at his companion’s impassive features. “That’s Kipling, you know. You ought to be chockful of him—Shall we have ice-cream sodas at Fuller’s now, or shop first?”

“Fuller’s now,” briefly emphatic. And they marched in.

“Yes, Kipling ought to be the god of your budding manliness: burly and brutal and blustering, and hit-the-bloody-nail-on-its-blasted head ... all that. I expect you’ve got ‘If’ pinned up over your washstand, haven’t you?”

“Not keen. (Raspberry, please....) Some poetry’s not bad. I like Rupert Brooke.”