No More Learning

. . He dared not think
Of what had come to Dick. . . . or what it meant--
The shrieking and the whistling and the stink
He'd lived in fourteen days and nights. 'T was luck
That he still lived. . . . And queer how little then
He seemed to care that Dick. . . .
perhaps 't was pluck
That hardened him--a man among the men--
Perhaps. . . . Yet, only think things out a bit,
And he was rabbit-livered, blue with funk!
And he'd liked Dick . . . and yet when Dick was hit
He hadn't turned a hair. The meanest skunk
He should have thought would feel it when his mate
Was blown to smithereens--Dick, proud as punch,
Grinning like sin, and holding up the plate--
But he had gone on munching his dry hunch,
Unwinking, till he swallowed the last crumb.
Perhaps 't was just because he dared not let
His mind run upon Dick, who'd been his chum.
He dared not now, though he could not forget.

Dick took his luck. And, life or death, 't was luck
From first to last; and you'd just got to trust
Your luck and grin. It wasn't so much pluck
As knowing that you'd got to, when needs must,
And better to die grinning. .