William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920.
He Did Not Know
H
He walked along the crowded street,
Smiled, tipped his hat, nodded his head
To his friends he chanced to meet.
With an unknowing, level stare;
They met him with an abstract eye
As if he were the air.
The dead man thought; he hurried home,
And found his wife before her glass,
Dallying with a comb.
He kissed her mouth, he stroked her head.
“Men act so strange since I’ve come back
From over there,” he said.
But now he heard her say his name,
And saw her study, grief-beguiled,
His picture in a frame.
And the great shell-burst, wide and red,
The sudden plunging into light;
And knew that he was dead.