Mr. Punch's History of the Great War
outward sign of the awakening of Germany, no slackening in frightfulness, no abatement in the blasphemous and overweening confidence of her Ruler and his War-lords, who can tell whether they have not moments of self-distrust?
THE WAYSIDE CALVARY.
August 4th, 1915.
Now with the full year Memory holds her tryst,
Heavy with such a tale of bitter loss
As never Earth has suffered since the Christ
Hung for us on the Cross.
If God, O Kaiser, makes the vision plain;
Gives you on some lone Calvary to see
The Man of Sorrows Who endured the pain
And died to set us free—
How will you face beneath its crown of thorn
That figure stark against the smoking skies,
The arms outstretched, the sacred head forlorn,
And those reproachful eyes?
How dare confront the false quest with the true,
Or think what gulfs between the ideals lie
Of Him Who died that men may live—and you
Who live that man may die?
Ah, turn your eyes away; He reads your heart;
Pass on and, having done your work abhorred,
Join hands with Judas in his place apart,
You who betrayed your Lord.
It is the way of modern war that we know little of what is going on, least of all on sea. Some of our sailormen have had their chance in the Heligoland Bight, off the Dogger Bank and Falkland Isles, and in the Dardanelles. It is well that we should remember what we owe to the patient vigil of their less fortunate comrades, the officers and men of the Grand Fleet, and to the indefatigable and ubiquitous activities of the ships officially classified as "Light Cruisers (Old)":
From Pole unto Pole, all the oceans between,
Patrolling, protecting, unwearied, unseen,
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