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54859: This is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong

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posted on 2024-04-25, 17:29 authored by First World War Poetry Digital Archive Project Team

This is no case of petty right or wrong
That politicians or philosophers
Can judge. I hate not Germans, nor grow hot
With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers.
Beside my hate for one fat patriot
My hatred of the Kaiser is love true:---
A kind of god he is, banging a gong.
But I have not to choose between the two,
Or between justice and injustice. Dinned
With war and argument I read no more
Than in the storm smoking along the wind
Athwart the wood. Two witches' cauldrons roar.
From one the weather shall rise clear and gay;
Out of the other an England beautiful
And like her mother that died yesterday.
Little I know or care if, being dull,
I shall miss something that historians
Can rake out of the ashes when perchance
The ph?nix broods serene above their ken.
But with the best and meanest Englishmen
I am one in crying, God save England, lest
We lose what never slaves and cattle blessed.
The ages made her that made us from dust:
She is all we know and live by, and we trust
She is good and must endure, loving her so:
And as we love ourselves we hate her foe.

History

Identifier

2931.txt

Creator

Thomas, Edward (1878-1917)

Date

1979

Date Created

01/01/1979

Temporal Date

31/12/1979

Type

Poem

Rights

Copyright Edward Thomas, 1979, reproduced under licence from Faber and Faber Ltd.

Repository Name

ProQuest

Publisher

The First World War Poetry Digital Archive

Usage metrics

    The Edward Thomas Collection

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