RICHARD ALDINGTON
��\YAR YAWP
America !
England's cheeky kid brother,
Who bloodily assaulted your august elder
At Bunker Hill and similar places
{Not mentioned in our history books),
What can I tell you of war or of peace?
Say, have yov forgotten 1861 f
Bull Run, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg?
Your million dead?
Tell me,
Was that the greatest time of your lives
Or the most disastrous ?
Who knows? Not you; not I.
Who can tell the end of this war?
And say, brother Jonathan,
D'you know what ifs all about?
Let me ivhisper you a secret — we don't !
We were all too fat with peace,
Or perhaps we didn't quite know how good peace was,
And so here we are.
And we're going to win. . . .
It's fine to be a soldier,
To get accepted by the recruiting sergeant,
�� �
