If I were still of handsome middle-age
I should not govern yet, but still should hope
To help the prosecution of this war.
I'd talk and eat (though not eat wheaten bread),
I'd send my sons, if old enough, to France,
Or help to do my share in other ways.
All through the long spring evenings, when the sun
Pursues its primrose path towards the hills,
If fine, I'd plant potatoes on the lawn;
If wet, write anxious letters to the Press.
I'd give up wine and spirits, and with pride
Refuse to eat meat more than once a day,
And seek to rob the workers of their beer.
The only way to win a hard-fought war
Is to annoy the people in small ways,
Bully or patronise them, as you will!
I'd teach poor mothers, who have seven sons
—All fighting men of clean and sober life—
How to look after babies and to cook;
Teach them to save their money and invest;
Not to bring children up in luxury
—But do without a nursemaid in the house!
If I were old, or only seventy,
Then should I be a great man in his prime.
I should rule army corps; at my command
Men would rise up, salute me, and attack
—And die. Or I might also govern men
By making speeches with my toothless jaws,
Chattering constantly; and men should say,
"One grand old man is still worth half his pay!"
That day I'd send my grandsons out to France
—And wish I'd got ten other ones to send
(One cannot sacrifice too much, I'd say).
Then would I make a noble toothless speech,
And all the listening Parliament would cheer.
"Gentlemen, we will never end this war
Till all the younger men with martial mien
Have entered capitals; never make peace
Till they are cripples, on one leg, or dead!"
Then would the Bishops all go mad with joy,
Cantuar, Ebor, and the other ones,
Be overwhelmed with pious ecstasy.
In thanking Him we'd got a Christian—
An Englishman—still worth his salt—to talk,
In every pulpit they would preach and prance;
And our great Church would work, as heretofore,
To bring this poor old nation to its knees.
Then we'd forbid all liberty, and make
Free speech a relic of our impious past;
And when this war is finished, when the world
Is torn and bleeding, cut and bruised to death,
Then I'd pronounce my peace terms—to the poor!
But as it is, I am not ninety yet,
And so must pay my reverence to these men—
These grand old men, who still can see and talk,
Who sacrifice each other's sons each day.
O Lord! let me be ninety yet, I pray.
Methuselah was quite a youngster when
He died. Now, vainly weeping, we should say:
"Another great man perished in his prime!"
O let me govern, Lord, at ninety-nine!"
August, 1917.
RAGTIME
The lamps glow here and there, then echo down
The vast deserted vistas of the town—
Each light the echo'd note of some refrain
Repeated in the city's fevered brain.
Yet all is still, save when there wanders past
—Finding the silence of the night too long—
Some tattered wretch, who, from the night outcast,
Sings, with an aching heart, a comic song.
The vapid parrot-words flaunt through the night—
Silly and gay, yet terrible. We know
Men sang these words in many a deadly fight,
And threw them—laughing—to a solemn foe;
Sang them where tattered houses stand up tall and stark,
And bullets whistle through the ruined street,
Where live men tread on dead men in the dark,
And skulls are sown in fields once sown with wheat.
Across the sea, where night is dark with blood
And rockets flash, and guns roar hoarse and deep,
They struggle through entanglements and mud,
They suffer wounds—and die—
But here they sleep.
From far away the outcast's vacuous song
Re-echoes like the singing of a throng;
His dragging footfalls echo down the street,
And turn into a myriad marching feet.
December, 1916.
PEACE CELEBRATION
Now we can say of those who died unsung,
Unwept for, torn, "Thank God they were not blind
Or mad! They've perished strong and young,
Missing the misery we elders find
In missing them." With such a platitude
We try to cheer ourselves. And for each life
Laid down for us, with duty well-imbued,
With song-on-lip, in splendid soldier strife—
For sailors, too, who willingly were sunk—
We'll shout "Hooray!"—
And get a little drunk.
To SACHEVERELL