A little cottage stood hard by the road
Whose one small window said, in manuscript,
"Wasching for soldiers and for officers,"
And there we left my shirt with anxious fears
And fond injunctions to the Belgian dame.
So it was washed. I marked it as I passed
Waving svelte arms beneath the kindly sun
As if it semaphored to its own shade
That answered from the grass. I saw it fill
And plunge against its bonds--methought it yearned
To join its tameless kin, the airy clouds.
And as I saw it so, I sang aloud,
"To-morrow I shall wear thee! Haste, O Time!"
Fond, futile dream! That very afternoon,
Her washing taken in and folded up
(My shirt, my shirt I mourn for, with the rest),
The frugal creature locked and left her cot
To cut a cabbage from a neighbour's field.
Then, without warning, from the empurpled sky,
Swift with grim dreadful purpose, swooped a shell
(Perishing Percy was the name he bore
Amongst, the irreverent soldiery), ah me!
And where the cottage stood there gaped a gulf;
The jewel and the casket vanished both.
* * * * *
Were there no other humble homes but that
For the vile Hun to fire at? Did some spy,
In bitter jealousy, betray my shirt?
What boots it to lament? The shirt is gone.
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