This is the tale that is told of an almost universally respected
Minister,
Who, being fully aware of the views of Continental Potentates, and
their plans ambitious and sinister,
For the better defence of his native land, and to free her from
continual warlike alarms,
Determined that he would popularize the conception (and a very good
one too) of a Nation in Arms!
Now this is the way he proceeded to fan the flame of patriot ardour--
(This metre looks at first as easy to write as blank verse, or Walt
Whitman, but is in reality considerably harder),--
He assured his crowded audience that, while everyone must deprecate a
horrid, militant, Jingoist attitude,
Not to serve one's country--at least on Saturday afternoons--was the
very blackest ingratitude:
Death on the battlefield,--or at least the expense of buying a
uniform,--was the patriots' chiefest glory;
Dulce et decorum est (said the statesman, amid thunderous cheers) pro
patria mori!
Everyone should be ready to defend his hearth and home, be it humble
cot or family mansion,
Provided always that he discouraged a tendency to Militarism and
Imperial Expansion:
That was the habit of mind which a Briton's primary duty to stifle
was,
Seeing that the country's salvation lay rather with the intelligent,
spontaneous, disinterested volunteer who didn't care how obsolete the
pattern of his rifle was:
Too much skill in shooting or drill was a perilous thing, and he did
not mean to acquire it,
For fear of alarming peace-loving Emperors and such-like by display of
a combative spirit;
Regular armies tended to that: and in view of the state of
international conditions he
Meant to cut down our own to the minimum consistent with Guaranteed
Efficiency,--
Being convinced as he was that an army recruited and trained on a
properly peaceful principle
Would be wholly (and here comes a rhyme that won't please the mere
purist, but I'm sorry to say it's the only available one) wholly, I
say, and completely invincible!
This being so, he did not propose to devise any scheme or with
cut-and-dried details to fetter a
Patriot Public which quite understood of itself that England
Expects--et cetera.
After this oratorical burst, as the country next day was informed by
about two hundred reporters,
The Right Honourable Gentleman resumed his seat amid loud and
continuous applause, having spoken for two hours and three quarters.
The Public at once declared with unanimity so remarkable that nothing
would well surpass it
That patriotic self-sacrifice was a Priceless National Asset:
No rational person, they said, could fail to be deeply impressed by
the charms
Of that truly august conception, a Nation in Arms:
To become expert in the use of strictly defensive weapons, spear or
sword, Lee-Metford, torpedo, or sabre,
Was a duty--if not for oneself, yet incumbent without any shadow of
doubt on one's neighbour;
Still there were some who might possibly urge that the world was at
peace, and the time was not ripe yet for it,--
Besides the undoubted fact that a patriot who was asked to sacrifice
his Saturday half-holiday might legitimately inquire what he was
likely to get for it;
So on the whole while they recognized quite (what a metre this is, to
be sure!) that the Minister's scheme was replete with attraction,
They decided to wait for a while (what with the danger of encouraging
a spirit of Militarism and a number of other excellent reasons) before
putting his plan into action.
Then the Continental Potentates--and if I venture at all to allude to
them, it is
Only to show how all this Nation-in-Arms business may lead to the most
regrettable extremities:
This part of my poem in short most painful and sad to a lover of peace
is,
And in fact I believe I can deal with it best by a delicate use of the
figure Aposiopesis--
However--the net result was that a time arrived when Consols went down
to nothing at all, caddies in thousands were thrown out of work and
professional footballers docked of their salary,
And several League matches had to be played at a lamentable financial
loss in the absence of the usual gallery!
Then, some time after that (it's really impossible to say what
happened in between) when business at last had resumed its usual
working,
And the nation in general was no longer engaged in painfully realistic
manoeuvres, on the Downs, between Guildford and Dorking,--
Then the public met and resolved like the person whose case is
recorded in fable
That now that the steed had been stolen (or at least suffered from
exposure to the air) it was high time to close the door of the stable;
And that never again no more should their cricket-fields, football
grounds, croquet lawns, bunkers,
Be profaned by the feet of Cossacks, Chasseurs, Bashi-Bazouks, or
Junkers;
And I don't think they talked very big about Nations in Arms, or
inscribed on their banners any particularly inspiring motto,
But they learnt to shoot and to drill, not more or less but quite
well--in spite of the dangers of Militarism--for the plain and simple
reason that they'd got to!