THE MELTING-POT.
["The municipality of Rothausen has decided to present to the collection of metal which is being made in Germany its monument of Kaiser WILLIAM THE FIRST."—Reuter.]
Heavy is Armageddon's price
And loud the call to sacrifice;
All stuff composed of likely metals—
Door-knockers, hairpins, cans and kettles—
Into the War's insatiate melting-pot
Has to be shot.
That was a hard and bitter blow
When first your church-bells had to go—
Those saintly bells that rang carillons
While in the maw of happy millions
Pure joy and gratitude to Heaven thrilled
For babies killed.
It hurt your Christian hearts to melt
A source of faith so keenly felt;
And now (worse sacrilege than that) you
Propose to take yon regal statue,
That godlike effigy, and make a gun
Of WILLIAM ONE!
What will He say when you reduce
His Relative to cannon-juice?
The prospect must be pretty rotten
If thus the Never-To-Be-Forgotten
Is treated, like the corpses of your friends,
For useful ends.
I hear the ALL-HIGHEST mutter, "Ha!
They're liquefying Grandpapa!
The nation's needs, that grow acuter,
Count sacred things as so much pewter;
Even my holy crown may go some day
Down the red way!"
O.S.