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Broadway, 1916
THE GREAT gold room is heavy with the scent | |
| Of flowers crushed by dancers, and smoke, and wine; | |
| The little tables with clustered glasses shine. | |
| And always through the buzzing merriment | |
| And through the thump of tired musicians’ play | 5 |
| I hear the drums an ocean’s breadth away— | |
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| Away—and shaded candles hiss and dance | |
| Into the air—and burst—my pulses quiver— | |
| I smell the stinking field, and ’cross the river | |
| I see a fringe of mud-swamped guns that glance | 10 |
| When shells come whining toward the bitter pit | |
| Of ploughed-up reddened muck and powder-grit— | |
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| Ploughed-up and red with blood. But what is blood | |
| To placid prattlers in another world, | |
| Who only recall the showy flags unfurled | 15 |
| And waving scarfs, as on the curb they stood | |
| Some years ago and watched a regiment pass | |
| With jaunty step and cheerful blare of brass? | |
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| Yes, what is blood to those in puppet-land? | |
| Hung on a new gilt cord they jerk and swing | 20 |
| Compliant with the propitious breeze and sing | |
| Self-satisfied thoughtless tunes, nor seek the hand | |
| That strings them there—discreet torpidity, | |
| With ears that hear not, eyes that will not see. | |
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| There is a sudden stir, and waiters run | 25 |
| To catch a man whose flabby face goes grey. | |
| “He’s dead!” the whisper comes. The musicians’ play | |
| Stops. A few white-lipped women have begun | |
| To cry a little. And all are soon outside. | |
| Yet this day twenty thousand men have died. | 30 |
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