["The municipality of Rothausen has decided to present to the collection
of metal which is being made in Germany its monument of Kaiser WILLIAM
THE FIRST."--_Reuter_.]
Heavy is Armageddon's price
And loud the call to sacrifice;
All stuff composed of likely metals--
Door-knockers, hairpins, cans and kettles--
Into the War's insatiate melting-pot
Has to be shot.
That was a hard and bitter blow
When first your church-bells had to go--
Those saintly bells that rang carillons
While in the maw of happy millions
Pure joy and gratitude to Heaven thrilled
For babies killed.
It hurt your Christian hearts to melt
A source of faith so keenly felt;
And now (worse sacrilege than that) you
Propose to take yon regal statue,
That godlike effigy, and make a gun
Of WILLIAM ONE!
What will _He_ say when you reduce
His Relative to cannon-juice?
The prospect must be pretty rotten
If thus the Never-To-Be-Forgotten
Is treated, like the corpses of your friends,
For useful ends.
I hear the ALL-HIGHEST mutter, "Ha!
They're liquefying Grandpapa!
The nation's needs, that grow acuter,
Count sacred things as so much pewter;
Even my holy crown may go some day
Down the red way!"