I was a soldier once. How fear was then
Mixed with bright honour and delightful pride !
How different we were from other men,
Who lived in houses and in houses died !
How huge the morning was, before the sun
Sullenly found us marching in the mist !
And sleep was dark and deep when work was done
And food awoke in us a greedy zest.
But all that's over. I no more shall see,
Quick to the word and ready to my hand,
The smooth and easy moving company
Marching in column on the heathery land.
There's no pride now and fear's the fear that's bred
Of money and suchlike maggots in the head.
Here in a cage the dollars come down.
To the click of a tube the dollars tumble.
And out of a mouth the dollars run,
I finger the dollars,
Paper and silver,
Thousands a day.
Some days it's fun to finger the dollars.
Some days . . .
the dollars keep on in a sob or a whisper :
A flame of rose in the hair,
A flame of silk at the throat.
Let us be honest; the lady was not a harlot until she
married a corporation lawyer who picked her from
a Ziegfeld chorus.
Before then she never took anybody's money and paid
for her silk stockings out of what she earned singing
and dancing.
She loved one man and he loved six women and the
game was changing her looks, calling for more and
more massage money and high coin for the beauty
doctors.
Now she drives a long, underslung motor car all by herself,
reads in the day's papers what her husband is
doing to the inter-state commerce commission, requires
a larger corsage from year to year, and wonders
sometimes how one man is coming along with
six women.