"THE DAY."

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 276, 19 November 1914, Page 8

"THE DAY."

(By HENRY CHAPPELL. (The author of this magnificent poem is Mr Henry Chappell, a Railway Porter at Bath. Mr Chappell is known to Ins comrades as the "Ijath Railway Poet." A poem such as this lifts him to the rank of a national poet.)

You boasted the Day,' and you toasted the Day, And now the Day has come. Blasphemer, braggart, and coward ail, Little you reck of the numbing ball, The blasting shell, or the "white arm's" fall, As.they speed poor humans homo.

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 gnastly mine; Not all the waters of the Rhine Can wash thv foul hands clean.

You dreamed for the Day, you schemed for the Day; Watch how the Day will go. Slayer 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 isvthe 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 flamesplit skies The glassy eyes of the dead?

You have wronged for the Day, you have longed for the Day That lit the awful flame, "lis 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 dayListen and hear what He lias to say: "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." What can you say to God? —"London Daily Express."