Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

War Angles

John Gould Fletcher

QUEEN VICTORIA’S statue

Was surrounded with geraniums,

Red as the massive backs

Of scarlet-coated grenadiers.

Queen Victoria’s statue

Today is encircled

With a flourishing crop

Of early potatoes.

Thus the world changes,

And we change with it.

You are not utterly desolate,

War-tired soldiers.

You lie down in the churned mud,

Slaves in mud-colored garments.

The storm passes over your heads;

When it is over,

Whatever is left of you

Will get up and make a new world.

It is we who are desolate,

We older people;

Hearing the stale chatter

On life, love, art, the war.

We are the bitter ones

Who cannot smile;

For in our heart of hearts,

We know we are dried specimens in the museum

Of older things—

Dried specimens set under glass,

Soon to be peered at curiously by searching alien eyes.

Let us never forget

Joy has two faces:

One soft and transient,

Broken by the lightest shadow;

Another one harder,

Time-worn and wrinkled,

Facing its pain,

As if fighting to get the last drop

Out of the cup.

Let us never forget

Sometimes to shrug our shoulders.

There is always this drift,

Always this chaos,

Always renewal.

Let us remember

That over this chaos

There is sometimes moonlight,

And sometimes dawn.