"THE DAY”

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVIII, Issue 45, 3 January 1940, Page 1

"THE DAY”

A WAR POEM OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. Shortly after the outbreak of the 1914-18 war Mr Henry Chappell known as the “Bath Railway Poet,” published a poem entitled “The Day. ” It is so applicable to the prerent struggle that we reproduce it:— You boasted the Day, and you toasted the Day, And now the Day has come. Blasphemer, braggart, and coward all, Little you reek of the numbing ball, The blasting shell, or the “white arm’s” fall, As they speed poor humans home. You spied for the Day, you lied for the Day, And woke the Day’s red spleen. Monster, who asked God’s aid divine, Then strewed His seas with the ghastly mine J Not all the waters of the Rhine Can wash thy foul hands clean. You dreamed for the Day, you schemed for the Day; Watch how the Day will go. Slayer of age and youth and prime (Defenceless slain for never a crime), Thou art steeped in blood as a hog in slime, False friend and cowardly foe. You have sown for the Day, you have grown for the Day; Yours is the harvest red. Can you hear the groans and the awful cries? Can you see the heap of slain that lies, And sightless, turned to the flamesplit skies, The glassy eyes of the dead? You have wronged for the Day, you have longed for the Day, That lit the awful flame. ’Tis nothing to you that hill and plain Yield sheaves of dead men amid the grain; That widows mourn for their loved ones slain, And mothers curse thy name. But after the Day there’s a price to pay For the sleepers under the sod; And He you have mocked for many a day— Listen, and hear what He has to say: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” What can you say to God?