THE INCORRUPTIBLES.
[Herr SCHÄFF, writing in the Tägliche Rundschau on the spiritual grandeur of Germany, declares that the degradation of her enemies will not prevent her doing honour to those dauntless men who in enemy and neutral countries have stood for truth and actualities. "The time will come when we shall mention their names and call them our friends. After the War we shall do homage to these men and to their incorruptible conduct. We shall erect monumental brasses in their honour. They are heroes, and their memories shall be consecrated.">[
A literary spokesman of the Huns
Pays liberal homage to those "dauntless" sons
Of hostile nations, who have all along
Maintained their fellow-countrymen were wrong.
No guerdon for their courage is too great,
But, till the War is ended, they must wait;
Then shall Germania, with grateful soul,
Inscribe their names upon her golden roll;
And "monumental brasses" shall attest
The zeal wherewith they strove to foul their nest.
Such homage no one grudges them in lands
Where eulogy for deep damnation stands;
But in the Motherland they still infest
How shall we treat this matricidal pest?
No torture, not the worst their patrons use
On starving women or on shipwrecked crews,
No pain however bitter would requite
Their transcendental infamy aright.
Death in whatever form were all too mild
For those who at their country's anguish smiled.
Oblivion is by far the bitterest woe
England's professional revilers know,
Who joyously submit to be abhorred
But suffer grinding torments if ignored.
So let them live, renounced by their own sons,
And taste the amnesty that spares and shuns.
"Mrs. J.M. B—— (née Nurse ——), a son."—Scotsman.
Nurses, like poets, are born, not made.