The Ballad of Ensign Joy

Like wasps from a trampled
nest.
Yet, that last night!
They had just set off
When he pitched on his face with
a smothered cough,
And a row of holes in his chest.

HE left a letter. It saved
the lives
Of the three who ran from the
Gas;
A small enclosure alone survives,
In Middlesex, under glass:
Only the ribbon that left his
breast
On the day he turned and ran
with the rest,
And lied with a lip of brass!

BUT the letters they wrote
about the boy,
From the Brigadier to the
men!
They would never forget dear
Mr. Joy,
Not look on his like again.
Ermyntrude read them with dry,
proud eye.
There was only one letter that
made her cry.
It was from Sergeant Wren:

THERE never was such a fear-
less man,
Or one so beloved as he.
He was always up to some daring
plan,
Or some treat for his men and
me.
There wasn't his match when he
went away;
But since he got back, there has
not been a day
But what he has earned a
V. C

A CYNICAL story? That's
not my view.
The years since he fell are
twain.
What were his chances of coming
through?
Which of his friends remain?
But Ermyntrude's training a
splendid boy
Twenty years younger than En-
sign Joy.
On balance, a British gain!

AND Ermyntrude, did she
lose her all
Or find it, two years ago?
O young girl-wives of the boys
who fall,
With your youth and your
babes to show!
No heart but bleeds for your
widowhood.
Yet Life is with you, and Life is
good.
No bone of your bone lies low!

YOUR blessedness came – as
it went – in a day.
Deep dread but heightened
your mirth.
Your idols' feet never turned to
clay —
Never lit upon common earth.
Love is the Game but is not the
Goal:
You played it together, body and
soul,
And you had your Candle's
worth.

YES! though the Candle light
a Shrine,
And heart cannot count the
cost,
You are Winners yet in its tender
shine!
Would they choose to have
lived and lost?
There are chills, you see, for the
finest hearts;
But, once it is only old Death
that parts,
There can never come twinge