Classic Poem

IN WAR TIME

The little home paper comes to me,
As badly printed as it can be;
It's ungrammatical, cheap, absurd —
Yet how I love each intimate word!
For here am I in the teeming town,
Where the sad, mad people rush up and down,
And it's good to get back to the old lost place,
And gossip and smile for a little space.

The weather is hot; the corn crop's good;
They've had a picnic in Sheldon's Wood.
And Aunt Maria was sick last week;
Ike Morrison's got a swollen cheek,
And the Squire was hurt in a runaway —
More shocked than bruised, I'm glad they say.
Bert Wills — I used to play ball with him —
Is working a farm with his Uncle Jim.

The Red Cross ladies gave a tea,
And raised quite a bit. Old Sol MacPhee
Has sold his house on Lincoln Road —
He couldn't carry so big a load.
The Methodist minister's had a call
From a wealthy parish near St. Paul.
And old Herb Sweet is married at last —
He was forty-two. How the years rush past!

BuThere's an item that makes me see
What a difficult riddle life can be.
" Ed Stokes, " it reads, " was killed in France
When the Allies made their last advance. "
Ed Stokes! That boy with the laughing eyes
As blue as the early-Summer skies!
He wouldn't have killed a fly — and yet,
Without a murmur, without a regret.

He left the peace of our little place,
And went away with a light in his face;
For out in the world was a job to do,
And he wouldn't come home till he'd seen it through! ...
Four thousand miles from our tiny town
And its hardware store, this boy went down.
Such a quiet lad, such a simple chap —
BuThe's put his home town on the map!