TO THE KAISER

I met a man—a refugee, And he was blind in both his eyes, sir. And in his pate A silver plate (’Twas rather comical to see!) Shone where the bone skull used to be Before your shrapnel struck him, Kaiser. Shattering in the self-same blast (Blind as a tyrant in his dotage), The foolish wife Who risked her life, As peasants will do till the last, Clinging to one small Belgian cottage. That was their home. The whining child Beside him in the railway carriage Was born there, and The little land Around it (now untilled and wild), Was brought him by his wife on marriage. The child was whining for its mother, And interrupting half he said, sir. I’ll never see the pair again.... Nor they the mother that lies dead, sir. That’s all—a foolish tale, not worth The ear of noble lord or Kaiser. A man un-named, By shrapnel maimed, Wife slain, home levelled to the earth— That’s all. You see no point? Nor I, sir. Yet on the day you come to die, sir, When all your war dreams cease to be, Perchance will rise Before your eyes (Piercing your hollow heart, Sir Kaiser!) The picture that I chanced to see, Riding (we’ll say) from A to B.