And a quarter next week were with fever down:
For officials will blunder, and men must die,
And it’s little use to be asking why;
For nought comes of the press and its groaning.
Three Regiments went sailing away to the West—
Away to the west, whence they first had come;
And none had escaped from the island’s pest,
But all were feeble, and limp and glum.
And soldiers must suffer and die, no doubt,
But why did they send those Regiments out?