Classic Poem

IN WAR TIME

(The building that formerly housed a certain great shop in New York has been turned into a hospital for wounded soldiers.)

I

Women used to stroll through these aisles,
Idly looking at laces,
Studying the new styles,
And the new graces. ...
Now, if they walked these dim defiles,
They would see only faces:

II

Faces of boys who have been
Through the mud and the mire,
But who laugh, and chuckle, and grin
In their bandaged attire;
Smile, since deep down within,
Their souls are on fire.

III

Where the counters stood yesterday,
Covered with light stuff,
And you thought the shop gay
With its delicate bright stuff,
See what a long array
Of the spiritual right stuff!

IV

This was once but a mart;
Here salesgirl and shoe-man
Played a diplomat's part
For each difficult woman;
Now the place finds its heart —
It is suddenly human!

V

These lads have come back —
Oh, the long, aching aisles of them!
They are laid on pain's rack —
I think there are miles of them!
But watch their lips crack
At your jokes! See the smiles of them!

VI

And there's singing here now,
And the movie's bright flash;
Life is strange, I avow;
Gone are cretonne and crash.
See that lad's tied-up brow
In the aisle that heard " Cash! "

VII

Here are rest and quiet
Where they never had been;
No " bargain day " riot,
No bustle and din.
This stuff — you can't buy it! —
God laid the stock in!