“DER TAG---THE DAY:”

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 158, 5 June 1940, Page 8

“DER TAG---THE DAY:”

Early in the Great War Henry Chappell, a Bath (England) railway porter, wrote the poem “Der Tag” (German for “The Day”) which cleverly pictured the ex-Kaiser’s. insatiable ambition, planning for its achievement, all it entailed, and the price it demanded. The poem is as follows a.nd is peculiarly applicable to the Nazis of 1940:

You boasted the Day, and you toasted the Day, And now the D»y has come. Blasphemer, braggart' and coward all, Little you reck of the numbing ball, The blasting shell, or the “white arm’s 1 ' fall, As they speed poor humans home.

You spied for the Day, you lied for the Day, And woke the Day's red spleen. Monster, who asked God’s aid Divine, Then strewed His seas with the ghastly mine; Not all the waters of all the Rhine , Can wash thy foul hands clean.

You dreamed for the Day, you schemed for the Day Watch how the Day will go. Slaver of age and youth and prime (Defenceless slain for never a crime) Thou art steeped in blood as a hog in slime, False friend and cowardly foe.

You have sown for the Day, you have grown for the Day; Yours is the harvest red. Can you hear the groans and the awful cries ? Can you see the heap of slain that lies. And sightless turned to the flame-split skies The glassy eyes of tho dead ? •

You have wronged for the Day, you have longed for the Day That lit the awful flame, -’Tis nothing to you that hill and plain. Yield sheaves of dead men amid the grain ; That widows mourn for their loved ones, slain, And mothers curse thy name.

But after the Day there’s a price to pay For the sleepers under the sod, And He you have mocked for many a day— Listen and hoar what Ho has to say: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay 1” What can you say to God ?