<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Two Viewpoints</h1><p class="byline"> AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR <br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/><span class="smallcaps">OF The Vigilantes</span><br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/>Permission to reproduce in this book.</p><div class="stanza"><p class="subhead">A German soldier in his journal wrote:</p><div class="stanza"><p class="line">H E was a French Boy Scout--a little lad </p><p class="line">No bigger than my Hansel. He refused </p><p class="line">To tell if any of his countrymen </p><p class="line">Were hidden thereabout. Fifty yards on </p><p class="line">We ran into an ambush. Well, of course </p><p class="line">We shot him-little fool! Poor little fool! </p><p class="line">Thinking himself a hero as he stood </p><p class="line">Facing our guns, so little and so young </p><p class="line">Against the sunny vineyard--green, I thought </p><p class="line">What wasted courage! for the child was brave, </p><p class="line">Fool as he was. The pity...</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:%">Here there came</p><p class="line">A sudden shrapnel, and the writing stopped...</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Did I write that? O God--did I write that? </p><p class="line">Mine--they were mine, the folly and the waste. </p><p class="line">Now the keen edge of death has cut away </p><p class="line">The eyelids of my soul and I must bear </p><p class="line">The perfect understanding of the dead. </p><p class="line">Now that I know myself as I am known, </p><p class="line">How shall my soul endure Eternity? </p><p class="line">God, God, if there be pity left for me, </p><p class="line">Send to my son the child that I despised </p><p class="line">A messenger to burn into his soul</p><p class="line">While still he lives, the truth I died to learn! </p></div></div></body></html> · Great War