TO A FALSE PATRIOT.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 April 1919, Page 2

TO A FALSE PATRIOT.

(By Oliver Sleeman, Editor of "Punch.") He came obedient to the call; He might have shirked like half his mates Who, while their comrades fight and fall, Still so to swell the football gates And you, a patriot In your prime, You wared a flag above his head And hoped he'd have a high old time And slapped him on the back and sala : "You'll show 'em what we British are I Give us your hand, old pal, to shake"; And took him rouud from bar to bar And made hhu drunk—for England's sake. That's how you nelped him. Yesterday Clear-eyed and earnest, keen and hard lie held himself the soldier's way— And now they've got him under guard. That doesn't hurt you, you're all right Your easy conscience takes no blame • And he, poor boy, with morning's light He eats his heart out, sick w'th shame. What's that to you? You understand Nothing of all his bitter pain. You have no regiment to brand, You have no uniform to slain. No vow of service to abuse No pledge to King and Country due, But he had something dear to love And he lias lost It—thank's to you. —November 4, 1914.