human
By Jove! said Tom,
gpt
I may perhaps,
human
And if it comes to that, why not come to the war, and see it for yourself? A new country--one of the finest in the world. New scenery, new actors,--Why, Constantinople itself is a poem! Yes, there is another 'Revolt of Islam' to be written yet. Why don't you become our war poet? Come and see the fighting; for there'll be plenty of it, let them say what they will. The old bear is not going to drop his dead donkey without a snap and a hug. Come along, and tell people what it's all really like. There will be a dozen Cockneys writing battle songs, I'll warrant, who never saw a man shot in their lives, not even a hare. Come and give us the real genuine grit of it,--for if you can't, who can?
gpt
It is a grand thought! The true war poets, after all, have been warriors themselves. Körner and Alcaeus fought as well as sang, and sang because they fought. Old Homer, too,--who can believe that he had not hewn his way through the very battles which he describes, and seen every wound, every shape of agony? A noble thought, to go out with that army against the northern Anarch, singing in the van of battle, as Taillefer sang the song of Roland before William's knights, and to die like him, the proto-martyr of the Crusade, with the melody yet upon one's lips!
human
What a handsome fellow he is, after all, if there were but more of him? said Tom to himself.
gpt
I wonder if he'd fight, though, when the singing-fever was off him.