Henri

TO-NIGHT I drifted to the restaurant We scribblers fancy, finding it unchanged Save that I saw no more my dapper friend, The waiter Henri. When I asked for him, "Gone to the War," another waiter said…

"Gone to the War!" That man, so mild a part Of peace and its traditions! Debonair, Childlike, alert, and none too strong, we'd thought. He who had served so deftly, and, secure, Had walked the beaten path and sheltered ways— He now was with the cannon and the kings! Gentle he was, and ever with a smile. Ah! wears he still a smile? For now his soul Has taken iron, and stood forth austere, Made suddenly acquainted with despair, And pain, and horror, and the timeless things. I called him once, and he unhurried came;

And now he hurries at Another's beck— Ancient, enormous, immemorial War— And, past the trampled valley of the Meuse, Finds a red service in the day's vast hall Of thunders and in night's domain of death Attends, unless he too be of the dead. And I sit here beneath the harmless lights!