Leave it at that, then. On your toes, old son!
Still with a grin for plagues we can't abolish—
The super-fatted Staff; the wily Hun;
The Army's tribal god of Spit-and-Polish.
Blight seize 'em all!
I'll wander now and borrow
A couple of blankets from the R.T.O.,
You can doss down with me an hour or so.
We'll trek together to the guns to-morrow.
Finish your swipes, old Jimmy, while you can—
Walk—March! The blooming ride! Bonne chance,
Suzanne!
L. M. HASTINGS
Nobis cum Pereant
Nobis cum pereant amorum
Et dulcedines et decor,
Tu nostrorum præteritorum,
Anima mundi, sis memor.
On the mind's lonely hill-top lying
I saw man's life go by like a breath,
And Love that longs to be love undying,
Bowed with fear of the void of death.
"If Time be master," I heard her weeping,
"How shall I save the loves I bore?
They are gone, they are gone beyond my keeping—
Anima mundi, sis memor!
"Soul of the World, thou seest them failing—
Childhood's loveliness, child's delight—
Lost as stars in the daylight paling,
Trodden to earth as flowers in fight.
Surely in these thou hast thy pleasure—
Yea! they are thine and born therefor:
Shall they not be with thy hid treasure?—
Anima mundi, sis memor!
"Only a moment we can fold them
Here in the home whose life they are:
Only a moment more behold them
As in a picture, small and far.
Oh, in the years when even this seeming
Lightens the eyes of Love no more,
Dream them still in thy timeless dreaming
Anima mundi, sis memor!"
HENRY NEWBOLT