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Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/216

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214
LES GRANDS MUTILES

And every Sunday–oh, it’s then
I am the happy man;
They wheel me to the river-side,
And there with rod and can
I sit and fish and catch a dish
Of goujons for the pan.


Aye, one gets used to everything,
And doesn’t seem to mind;
Maybe I’m happier than most
Of my two-legged kind;
For look you at the darkest cloud,
Lo! how it’s silver-lined.

THE FACELESS MAN

I’m dead.
Officially I'm dead. Their hope is past.
How long I stood as missing! Now, at last I’m dead.
Look in my face–no likeness can you see,
No tiny trace of him they knew as “me.”
How terrible the change!
Even my eyes are strange.
So keyed are they to pain,
That if I chanced to meet
My mother in the street
She’d look at me in vain.


When she got home I think she’d say:
“I saw the saddest sight to-day–