Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaim
  That “if our Lord returned He’d fight for us.” 
So let our bells and bishops do the same,
  Shoulder to shoulder with the motor-bus.

ARMS AND THE MAN

Young Croesus went to pay his call
On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall: 
And, though his wound was healed and mended,
He hoped he’d get his leave extended.

The waiting-room was dark and bare. 
He eyed a neat-framed notice there
Above the fireplace hung to show
Disabled heroes where to go
For arms and legs; with scale of price,
And words of dignified advice
How officers could get them free.

Elbow or shoulder, hip or knee,—­
Two arms, two legs, though all were lost,
They’d be restored him free of cost.

Then a Girl-Guide looked in to say,
“Will Captain Croesus come this way?”

WHEN I’M AMONG A BLAZE OF LIGHTS ...

When I’m among a blaze of lights,
With tawdry music and cigars
And women dawdling through delights,
And officers at cocktail bars,—­
Sometimes I think of garden nights
And elm trees nodding at the stars.

I dream of a small firelit room
With yellow candles burning straight,
And glowing pictures in the gloom,
And kindly books that hold me late. 
Of things like these I love to think
When I can never be alone: 
Then some one says, “Another drink?”—­
And turns my living heart to stone.

THE KISS

To these I turn, in these I trust;
Brother Lead and Sister Steel. 
To his blind power I make appeal;
I guard her beauty clean from rust.

He spins and burns and loves the air,
And splits a skull to win my praise;
But up the nobly marching days
She glitters naked, cold and fair.

Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this;
That in good fury he may feel
The body where he sets his heel
Quail from your downward darting kiss.

THE TOMBSTONE-MAKER

He primmed his loose red mouth, and leaned his head
Against a sorrowing angel’s breast, and said: 
“You’d think so much bereavement would have made
Unusual big demands upon my trade. 
The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk—­
Unless the fighting stops I’ll soon be broke.”

He eyed the Cemetery across the road—­
“There’s scores of bodies out abroad, this while,
That should be here by rights; they little know’d
How they’d get buried in such wretched style.”

I told him, with a sympathetic grin,
That Germans boil dead soldiers down for fat;
And he was horrified.  “What shameful sin! 
O sir, that Christian men should come to that!”

THE ONE-LEGGED MAN