The Poets & The War IV

By Gilbert Frankau
The War Illustrated, Volume 1, No. 7, Page 224, October 28, 1939.

This is the time of our testing;
Now, while his words still run
Hither and thither, unresting:
"Grant but my victory won,
Grant but my new battle-stations -
These lands were I ravaged and slew -
And I will grant peace to all nations."
Shall the Crooked Cross conquer the True?

Shall we palter and falter, forgiving
Each wrong he has done to mankind?
Then, indeed, were we blind, and purblind,
And false to all troths that we plighted -
Our old dead betrayed with our new -
And all hope for humanity blighted.
Shall the Crocked Cross wave o'er the True?

Must the nations whose watchword is Freedom
Give ear to the cunning of Force,
While the jackboot still tramples o'er Edom,
While the Shape on the Skeleton Horse
Still grins at the work of its master -
These corpses the bombs rent and blew?
What were peace, in such case, but disaster?
Shall the Crooked Cross haul down the True?

- The Daily Mail.

The Poets & The War

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