Saturday, November 12, 2016

For Veterans' Day, a remembrance in a diary

For Veterans’ Day weekend, part of a 1916 poem by Robert W. Service, whose brother was killed in World War I.
       Ima Hogg copied this into her summer 1918 diary.

The Fool---Service

“But it isn’t playing the game,” he said--
And he slammed his books away.
“The Latin & Greek I’ve got in my head
Will do for a duller day.”
“Rubbish!” I cried,
            “The bugle’s call
Isn’t for lads from school.”
D’ye think he’d listen?
Oh not at all:
So I called him a fool, a fool.
Now there’s his dog, by
            his empty bed.
And the flute he used to play.
And his favorite bat--
But Dick he’s dead--
Somewhere in France
            they say


Ima Hogg was mourning someone she lost in that war in 1918. We may never know who.

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