GERMANIA loved music and so the troubadour sang to her.

Gaily the troubadour sang of glory and empire, and the good German sword.

And he sang a song of Kultur, a pocketful of loot.

And a song of tears, the tears of widows and orphans in other lands, widows of foolish men who had denied her omnipotent will; and of foolish reluctant virgins to whom was given the shining compensation of bearing sons to her flushed warriors.

And if he sang of her own sons that lay before LiÉge, and by the Yser, and on the high road to Paris and to Calais, and Petrograd, it was still a song of glory in a minor but triumphant key.

For also he sang a song of an all-highest promise that, wreathed with the splendid bays of victory, her sons should return before the next ripening of the harvest. But the harvest was gathered and they came not.

And then he sang a song of the sea with the moan of the winds in it, and the cries of little children—which for a sea-song was not a pleasant song.

And thereafter with a fine operatic vehemence he broke into a song of glorious hate.

And again he sang (in a queer mocking voice) of the promise. But another harvest was garnered (and eaten) and still her sons returned not.

And she began to be afraid.

So (for he had a pretty wit) he sang again a song of glory and feasting, and there was laughter in his voice.

And at the last a song of thanks most indubitably sincere.

And she turned and looked upon the troubadour and found that he was Death—in the high boots of a German Hussar.

And she stopped her ears, not to mute his singing, but to shut out the thunder of the guns that came down all the winds.

JOSEPH THORP.