Victory Stuff
What d’ye think, lad; what d’ye think,
As the roaring crowds go by?
As the banners flare and the brasses blare
And the great guns rend the sky?
As the women laugh like they’d all gone mad,
And the champagne glasses clink:
Oh, you’re grippin’ me hand so tightly, lad,
I’m a-wonderin’: what d’ye think?D’ye think o’ the boys we used to know,
And how they’d have topped the fun?
Tom and Charlie, and Jack and Joe –
Gone now, every one.
How they’d have cheered as the joy-bells chime,
And they grabbed each girl for a kiss!
And now — they’re rottin’ in Flanders slime,
And they gave their lives — for this.Or else d’ye think of the many a time
We wished we too was dead,
Up to our knees in the freezin’ grime,
With the fires of hell overhead;
When the youth and the strength of us sapped away,
And we cursed in our rage and pain?
And yet — we haven’t a word to say….
We’re glad. We’d do it again.I’m scared that they pity us. Come, old boy,
Let’s leave them their flags and their fuss.
We’d surely be hatin’ to spoil their joy
With the sight of such wrecks as us.
Let’s slip away quietly, you and me,
And we’ll talk of our chums out there:
You with your eyes that’ll never see,
Me that’s wheeled in a chair.Robert Service (1921)
Robert Service (1874–1958) was a Scottish-Canadian poet, famous for his poetry about the West and the Yukon gold miners. After the success of his first book of poetry, The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses (1907), he spent time writing abroad in France and the United States. After the outbreak of the first World War, he became an ambulance driver for the American Field Service and a war correspondant for the Canadian government. This poem, Victory Stuff, comes from his 1921 collection, Ballads of a Bohemian.