CHANTS BEFORE BATTLE

Published in the English Review

London, England

August 1914

(pages 1 - 7)

(Variæ lectiones)

(Only one poet has struck the True Note of British Patriotism, the author of—

“We don’t want to fight, but, by Jingo, if we do,

We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money, too.”

If, however, all our poets had had this perfect thought, in all its detail,

English literature might have been enriched somewhat as follows.)

By G———Y C———r

The voys of peple touchede the

hevene

So loude cryden they with

mery stevene

“God save swich a lord, that is so

so good

He willneth no destruccioun of

blood!”

Certes, we wolde not in listes

fighte,

But an we wolde, shippes

mortal dight

We have, and eek the villeins

valiaunt

With sheeldes bright and swerdes

for to daunt.

By good Saint Jingo of our

nacioun!

Now, Crist that starf for our

redemptioun

So yeve me grace, is certein

gold, pardee,

Thes hestes to fulfille, as ye

shal see.

By A———d L———d T———n

White-throated lily of the wan wide park,

Come fearless (I was Oxford) in the dark.

I would not flush with rose that bloom of pink;

I would but say how sad I feel. You think

(And maiden’s thoughts are wonderful and white),

You really think, then, that we want to fight!

No, no, Etarre, by your own meek fawn’s gaze

And memories of my mother in your face,

I swear—I mean I solemnly affirm

(Tut! ’tis a law-court-atheist-witness term)

I mean I truthfully asseverate

That fighting we do not desiderate.

(Mind! there’s a mushroom! Do not trip!)

But surely

You will allow me to indulge the purely

Æsthetic intellectual contemplation

Of the imaginary situation

Created, the contingencies that flow

Sequent, supposing only—yes, I know,

It is a mirage, a fond fancy, star

Of a fantastic universe, Etarre—

Supposing—let us play at being boy

And girl again, it is a harmless joy.

Supposing, then, that as in opposition

To actual fact, conceivable condition,

We did. Why, then, indeed the patriot’s part,

The attitude of every brain and heart,

Must be, if only he would sleep in peace,

To use no higher argument, surcease

Of urging, to reflect upon the fact

That he who thinks has rarely need to act.

The thinker governs, and the government

By the electors’ (and my own) consent,

And the advice of the “blue-water-school,”

Have ships in plenty, and the men to rule,

To man them and—to fight them.

Fight, I say!

By heaven, I feel a Viking! Berserk! Nay,

Nay, Maud—I mean Etarre—be not alarmed!

It were not thee my hero mood had harmed!

Besides, if beautiful implied reflective,

You would have classed the spasm as subjective.

But I digress. We have the ships, the crew,

And—I complacent smile—the money too.

Shall we go watch the peacocks on the lake,

Or to the hall for China tea and cake?

By R———t B———g

Non volumus pugnare—that won’t do:

Out with your hand, boy, nolumus, whack, whack!

Nolumus—now go on—pugnare—we

Don’t want to fight. Sed, but. Smith septimus,

Your collar’s crumpled. How comes that? You fought?

Well, you are no tru Briton. Sed—but—si

Volumus—if we do—Sit down! Next boy!

Try not to mumble so. Si volumus,

Naves, the ships, habemus, them we have;

Naves habernus, we have got the ships.

Et, and, nautas, the men et etiam

And also. Briscoe, do sit straight. Go on,

Coleman, from nautas, sailors. Et. Well? And,

Etiam, also. Well? Don’t stammer so!

Pecuniam. Yes. The money. We have got

Habemus naves, all the ships we want,

Et nautas, and the men, et etiam

Pecuniam. And the money too. Time’s up.

By P———y B———e S———y

I awake from dreams of thee

In the first sweet sleep of night,

And the winds and stars in their melody

Sing softly to the swooning sea.

“We do not want to fight.”

Ah, but, my love, shall tyrants sneer,

Nor manhood turn to bay?

An earwig bores at that gross ear,

And its name is Liberty!

“But if we do,” I hear it say,

“By Jingo”—Men can die!)

Pale shallops carven of pure pearl

We have, all hero-manned;

Each has an arm around a girl,

And a Plato in his hand.

Nor is our leisured elegance

For grosser cares to cease;

War hath her items of expense

No less renowned than peace.

Though Godwin frequently reminds me

Of the father-in-law I left behind me.

By W———m B———e

Tiger, tiger, burning bright;

“No, we do not want to fight.”

Tiger, spare the bleating kid!

“But, by Jingo, if we did.”

“If we did, we have the ships,”

Fell not from too timid lips.

Ask the winds of Thorion then!

Wonder-word: “We have the men.”

Shall not Albion graft a stem

From the root Jerusalem?

“We have got the money too.”

I have heard Jesus was a Jew.

By F———s T———m

Beatific-pontifical,

Mary-mirifical,

(Os semper manet os)

Logos athanatos—

Right:

“We don’t want to fight.”

Sanguine-seraphical,

Diabolo-traffical,

Storm-shrieking antiphon

Strips soul like Antipon;

New:

“If, by Jingo, we do.”

Confident-fideal

In pace abide ye all!

Beam-gleams the phanal!

Deus et Heynell!

Cripps!

“We have the ships.”

Iaoth Ischyros!

Hair blown as Tyro’s

Never—like Aaron,

All keep your hair on!

[‘Ev]

“We have the men.”

Aureate-chrysostom,

Helio-byssos! Tom,

Drink to the nemesis

Of Parthenogenesis.

(Funny!)

“We have the money.”

By O———n S———n

A Hohenzollern, in his mailèd might,

Is apt to take for truth the merest rumour;

The supposition that we want to fight

Lacks humour.

Rash is the blind and puppy-baited youth;

The supposed spaniel may turn out a dingo!

So, William, if the rumour should prove truth,

By Jingo,

Let us count Dreadnoughts.

(By Winston’s wisdom) to your torpid ten.

Moreover, we have “gods in the machine,”

The men.

Did we not hear of trouble in Berlin

(The Bourse) about the “Panther’s”l little dash?

We, on the contrary, are rolling in

Hard cash.

By T———s G———y

The spark of day is on God’s anvil wrought;

The rooks caw requiem over coffined night;

In the soul’s dovecot coo the doves of thought

Their matin lay: “We do not want to fight.”

Yet, crowding on the central harmony,

Not as crowds gather to acclaim a king,

But hostile as the vultures from the sky

Swoop on the lone ox slackly staggering,

These thoughts—ah me! these other thoughts arise

“But if we do,”—a fiercer tocsin tolls!

“But if we do, by Jingo”—in our eyes

Flashes the beacon of our torch-lit souls.

Burns on our brain the vision, boundless blue

All islanded with grey, and on our lips

Springs the exultant note, the view-halloo,

The triumph-trumpet call: “We have the ships.”

While answering from the cliffs a voice replies,

“We have the men,” more solemn from the steep,

And on the crags the faery echo dies:

“We have the money”; deep responds to deep.

By D———e G———l R———i

Beetroots of lips! Blush not averse to white!

Bolsters of breasts! Writhe not beneath the whips

Of slander’s tooth! Damozel truth up-trips,

Smiling disdain: “We do not want to fight.”

But if we do (by Jingo) is the might

Of the Leviathan that raves and rips

Not ours? Not ours the Etna-scorning ships

That vomit meteors past Olympic spite?

Have we none valiant, none strong, none bold?

Have we not men? Ay, men the least of whom

Would with a finger-flip lay Langford low?

And is not Cheapside’s dawn the chryseal glow

Of that Old Lady—bearing in her womb

Ineffable, incalculable gold?

By D———s C———s

No ooftish had Fanny, though frisky; she dossed it for

fippence, for choice.

Oh no, sir, it wasn’t the whisky that injured her Melba-

like voice.

And although she had side-stepped, no doubt, sir, what

odds? The girl’s heart was all right;

And she’d openly put it about, sir, for Cocker, “We don’t

want to fight.”

Merely adding with spirit—no Briton but nurses the patriot

spark!

“If we did, mind, by Jingo, no kitten is England, no

leap in the dark

Would war be; we’ve ships, men and money—and plenty

left over for beer.

Now then, don’t you go getting funny—but stand us a

brandy, old dear.”

It was Houndsditch, and Fanny had gone there, fresh air

being good for her load,

Then a copper said: “Here, you, move on there!” She

answered: “You go and be blowed!”

A spirited dialogue started (no cribbing from Anthony

Hope

Or Plato); the slop, who had smarted before from this sort

of soft soap,

Said “You come along to the station. You’re drunk.”

Fanny murmured “All right!”

And she clawed at his mug with elation, observing, “We

don’t want to fight.”

And again to the beak, brisk as thruppence, who made it

a half thick ’un job,

“We’ve the tubs and the tars and the tuppence,” though

it cleared out her very last bob.