speaking is a soaring of great phrases, Balloons of tissue paper, Hung with patriotic bunting, That rise serene into the blue, While the crowds with necks uptilted Gaze at their upward soaring Till they vanish in the blue; And each man feels the blood of life Rumble in his ears important With participation in Events.

But not the fluttering of great flags Or the brass bands blaring, victorious, Or the speeches of persons in frock coats, Who pause for the handclapping of crowds, Not the stamp of men and women dancing, Or the bubbling of beer in the taverns,—        Frothy mugs free for the victorious—, Not all the trombone-droning of Events, Can drown the inextinguishible laughter of the gods.

 And they hear it, the old hooded houses, The great creaking peak-gabled houses, That gossip and chuckle to each other Across the clattering streets; They hear it, the old great gates, The grey gates with towers, Where in the changing shrill winds of the years Have groaned the poles of many various-colored banners. The poplars of the high-road hear it, From their trembling twigs comes a dry laughing, As they lean towards the glare of the city. And the old hard-laughing paving-stones, Old stones weary with the weariness Of the labor of men's footsteps, Hear it as they quake and clamour Under the garlanded wheels of the yawning confident cannon That are dragged victorious through the flutter of the city.

Beer is free to soldiers, Bubbles on wind-parched lips, Moistens easy kisses Lavished on the liberators.

Beer is free to soldiers All night in steaming bars, In halls delirious with dancing That spill their music into thronging streets.

 —All is free to soldiers, To the weary heroes Who have bled, and soaked The whole earth in their sacrificial blood, Who have with their bare flesh clogged The crazy wheels of Juggernaut, Freed the peoples from the dragon that devoured them, That scorched with greed their pleasant fields and villages, Their quiet delightful places:

So they of the frock-coats, amid wreaths and flags victorious, To the crowds in the flaring squares, And a murmurous applause Rises like smoke to mingle in the sky With the 

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