| Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern British Poetry. 1920. |
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| T. M. Kettle. 1880–1916 |
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| 115. To My Daughter Betty, The Gift of God |
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| IN wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown | |
| To beauty proud as was your mother's prime, | |
| In that desired, delayed, incredible time, | |
| You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own, | |
| And the dear heart that was your baby throne, | 5 |
| To dice with death. And oh! they'll give you rhyme | |
| And reason: some will call the thing sublime, | |
| And some decry it in a knowing tone. | |
| So here, while the mad guns curse overhead, | |
| And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor, | 10 |
| Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead, | |
| Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,— | |
| But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed, | |
| And for the secret Scripture of the poor. | |
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