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Two Viewpoints
  • TWO VIEWPOINTS

  • Narrator

    A German soldier in his journal wrote:

    Profile Picture of Narrator in Two Viewpoints
  • Profile Picture of The German Soldier in Two Viewpoints

    The German Soldier

    HE was a French Boy Scout— a little lad

  • No bigger than my Hansel. He refused

  • To tell if any of his countrymen

  • Were hidden thereabout. Fifty yards on

  • We ran into an ambush. Well, of course

  • We shot him— little fool! Poor little fool!

  • Profile Picture of The German Soldier in Two Viewpoints

    The German Soldier

    Thinking himself a hero as he stood

  • Facing our guns, so little and so young

  • Against the sunny vineyard-green, I thought

  • What wasted courage! for the child was brave,

  • Fool as he was. The pity...

  • *

  • Narrator

    Here there came

    Profile Picture of Narrator in Two Viewpoints
  • A sudden shrapnel, and the writing stopped....

  • *

  • Profile Picture of The German Soldier in Two Viewpoints

    The German Soldier

    Did I write that? O God— did I write that?

  • Profile Picture of The German Soldier in Two Viewpoints

    The German Soldier

    Mine— they were mine, the folly and the waste.

  • Profile Picture of The German Soldier in Two Viewpoints

    The German Soldier

    Now the keen edge of death has cut away

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