THE CRY OF THE MOTHERS TO THE BREWERS.

White Ribbon, Volume 23, Issue 266, 18 August 1917, Page 6

THE CRY OF THE MOTHERS TO THE BREWERS.

(By Mrs Harrison Lee-Cowie, Invertar gill, Organiser of “Strength of Nation” Movement for New Zealand.) We tome in our sorrow and anguish, We are coming aga n and again, You are the makers of Money, We are the mothers of Men. Sons and Brothers and Fathers Do you hear the wail of our woe. We gave up our boys for the Empire We called on our men to go. We knew they would come to us shattered, Limbless and blind and lame, But we gloried that God allowed us, A share in our country’s fame. But they came to us shattered and crippled, Not by Bullet or Ball, But for sake of a hellish tralln You caused our Laddies to fall. Stricken, diseased, unholy: Withered in body and soul The Brewers returned our Bairnics, The Boys we had given up whole. In camps with barbed Wire guarding Things of disease a id shame Were the bonny Boys we had given To die for an Empire’s name. And the blistering turse of a mother And the moan of a bride-elect Shall wither and blight the traffic That killed and blasted and wrecked. And we cry with ten thousand voices Your gold is accursed by them, You are counting your blood-stained Money We are counting our blood-stained Men. And the weeping eyes are looking For the God who will judge by fire, To crush this accursed traffic In the might of His holy ire. And we ll never cease our wailing For the blood so vainly spilt Till the God of the Helpless hear us And avenge us of your guilt. Come out from behind your barrels, Come out from each drinking den, A withering curse is on you From the Outraged Mothers of men. Let the Heavens above be opened, Let the whole earth shake and reel, You shall feel the wrath of the Mother Though you case vourself with steel. We'll fight for the babe on our bosom Like a lioness in her den, Ye have slain and shamed our first born And Aroused the Mothers of Men.

You laughed and mocked at the women, Our hearts were the paths you trod When to pile up your awful profits You wrecked the Temples of God. But the prayers of ten thousand Mothers From Mountain and City and Glen Shall prove to this hellish traffic We’re coming to save our men. —Ezekiel vii. 19.