There was his uniform, grey as ash, The boots that shone like a well-rubbed table, The tassels of silk on the colored sash And sleek Black Whistle down in the stable, The housewife, stitched from a beauty’s fan, The pocket-Bible with Mother’s writing, The sabre never yet fleshed in man, And all the crisp new toys of fighting. He gloated at them with a boyish pride, But still he wondered, Monmouth-eyed. The Black Horse Troop was a cavalier And gallant name for a lady’s ear. He liked the sound and the ringing brag And the girls who stitched on the county flag, The smell of horses and saddle-leather And the feel of the squadron riding together, From the loose-reined canter of colts at large, To the crammed, tense second before the charge: He liked it all with the young, keen zest Of a hound unleashed and a hawk unjessed.

And yet⁠—what happened to men in war Why were they all going out to war?