Snug at the club two fathers sat, <br />Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat. <br />One of them said: ‘My eldest lad <br />Writes cheery letters from Bagdad. <br />But Arthur’s getting all the fun <br />At Arras with his nine-inch gun.’ <br /> <br />‘Yes,’ wheezed the other, ‘that’s the luck! <br />My boy’s quite broken-hearted, stuck <br />In England training all this year. <br />Still, if there’s truth in what we hear, <br />The Huns intend to ask for more <br />Before they bolt across the Rhine.’ <br />I watched them toddle through the door— <br />These impotent old friends of mine.<br /><br />Siegfried Sassoon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fathers-2/
