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From “Volunteers” Joseph Quinn, Carney’s Point
I WAS a chemical worker in a powder factory, | |
| Sometimes even cutting the powder myself, | |
| In preparation for other people to shoot it. | |
| But now I’ve enlisted for the army, | |
| Wanting to do my duty, I suppose, | 5 |
| And shoot it myself. | |
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| And then—I’ll tell you— | |
| I want to forget a few things about women, | |
| But haven’t yet discovered the formula. | |
| The harder I hunt the more I remember, | 10 |
| And the more I pretend indifference | |
| The crazier is my madness. | |
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| When I told the recruiting officers I was not married, | |
| I meant it in the sight of God, | |
| For I knew they couldn’t see as God sees. | 15 |
| I’m not living with my wife at any rate; | |
| Another fellow is, and I’m going to war. | |
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| How well I remember the long kiss in the dark, | |
| That made her mine! | |
| Something I would and wouldn’t forget! | 20 |
| Oh, well—it’s easy to be chaste when you’re old, | |
| And to say what you think’s best to be done: | |
| But virgins won’t go to virgins for advice; | |
| And so we all live and learn, | |
| And agree at last, it may be, | 25 |
| With the scrupulosity of the passionless. | |
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| Yet after all why should I care? | |
| It’s only that I can’t help caring—that’s all. | |
| The finest moments of life anyway | |
| Are moments of some intoxication, | 30 |
| And each mouth must drink from its own goblet, | |
| Be it even the cup of wrath. | |
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| All battles are for the beauty of women! | |
| Falling into love, flying into passion— | |
| This invaded Belgium; | 35 |
| And nuptial fires kindled the flames of Louvain. | |
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