This Is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong
Edward Thomas
This is no case of petty right
or wrong
That politicians or
philosophers
Can judge. I hate not
Germans, not grow hot
With love of Englishmen, to
please newspapers.
patriot
My hatred of the Kaiser is
love true: —
A kind of god he is, banging
a gong.
But I have not to choose
between the two,
Or between justice and
injustice. Dinned
With war and argument I
read no more
along the wind
Athwart the wood. Two
witches’ cauldrons roar.
From one the weather shall
rise clear and gay;
Out of the other an England
beautiful
And like her mother that
died yesterday.
Little I know or care if,
being dull,
historians
Can take out of the ashes
when perchance
The phoenix broods serene
above their ken.
But with the best and
meanest Englishmen
I am one in crying, God save
England, lest
We lose what never slaves
and cattle blessed.
made us from dust:
She is all we know and live
by, and we trust
She is good and must
endure, loving her so:
And as we love ourselves we
hate her foe.
—1915