“Why, then, God’s soldier be he.”

-Shakespeare

“I’m Old Man Briggs,” he laughed, shaking my hand
That famous merry twinkle in his eye;
He made the table at the ******* Barrel
A festival of right good fellowship

But even as the plates were passed around
And with them too the happy banter of men
He sometimes seemed to drift away in thought
Into the past, into the mists, into -

His boyhood bayous, and the fields of youth
The desperation of Depression years
And still a boy, on the shingle at Normandy
Fighting across the smoky fields of France

Then home again to build the peace for us
With muscle and sweat, and with love and thought
Citizen-soldier, happy raconteur -
“I’m Old Man Briggs,” he laughed, shaking our hands

His place is empty now, just a little while
For we will see him again, at Supper