| |
| HAPPY boy, happy boy, | |
| David the immortal-willed, | |
| Youth a thousand thousand times | |
| Slain, but not once killed, | |
| Swaggering again today | 5 |
| In the old contemptuous way; | |
| |
| Leaning backward from your thigh | |
| Up against the tinselled bar— | |
| Dust and ashes! is it you? | |
| Laughing, boasting, there you are! | 10 |
| First we hardly recognized you | |
| In your modern avatar. | |
| |
| Soldier, rifle, brown khaki— | |
| Is your blood as happy so? | |
| Where’s your sling or painted shield, | 15 |
| Helmet, pike or bow? | |
| Well, you’re going to the wars— | |
| That is all you need to know. | |
| |
| Graybeards plotted. They were sad. | |
| Death was in their wrinkled eyes. | 20 |
| At their tables—with their maps, | |
| Plans and calculations—wise | |
| They all seemed; for well they knew | |
| How ungrudgingly Youth dies. | |
| |
| At their green official baize | 25 |
| They debated all the night | |
| Plans for your adventurous days | |
| Which you followed with delight, | |
| Youth in all your wanderings, | |
| David of a thousand slings. | 30 |
| |
