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It will be hard to lose these.

* * * * *

FRITZ'S APOLOGIA.

Yes, war is horrible and hideous--
It jars upon my sense fastidious,
My "noble instincts," to decline
To actions that are not divine.
So, when I mutilate your pictures,
So far from meriting your strictures,
Compassion rather is my due
For doing what I hate to do.
It grieves my super-saintly soul
Even to smash a china bowl;
To carry off expensive clocks
My tender conscience sears and shocks;
I really don't enjoy at all
Hacking to bits a panelled hall,
Rare books with priceless bindings burning,
Or boudoirs into cesspools turning.
My heart invariably bleeds
When I'm engaged upon these deeds,
And teardrops of the largest size
Fall from my heav'n-aspiring eyes.