Mr. Punch's History of the Great War
An' it's "Wake up, Johnnie!" they want you at the trawlin'
(With your long sea-boots and your tarry old tarpaulin);
All across the bitter seas duty comes a-callin'
In the Winter's weather off the North Sea ground.
It's well we've learned to laugh at fear—the sea has taught us how;
It's well we've shaken hands with death—we'll not be strangers now,
With death in every climbin' wave before the trawler's bow,
An' the black spawn swimmin' on the North Sea ground.
These brave men and their heroic brothers in the trenches are true sportsmen as well as patriots, not those who interpret the need of lightheartedness by the cult of "sport as usual" on the football field and the racecourse. And the example of the Universities shines with the same splendour. Of the scanty remnant that remain at Oxford and Cambridge all the physically lit have joined the O.T.C. Boat-race day has passed, but the crews are gone to "keep it long" and "pull it through" elsewhere:
Not here their hour of great emprise;
No mounting cheer towards Mortlake roars;
Lulled to full tide the river lies
Unfretted by the fighting oars;
The long high toil of strenuous play
Serves England elsewhere well to-day.
London changes daily. The sight of the female Jehu is becoming familiar; the lake in St. James's Park has been drained and the water-fowl driven to form a concentration camp by the sorry pool that remains beside the Whitehall Gate.
Spy-hunting is prevalent in East Anglia, but the amateurs have not achieved any convincing results. Spring poets are suffering from suspended animation; there is a slump in crocuses, snowdrops, daffodils and lambkins. Their "musings always turn away to men who're arming for the fray." The clarion and the fife have ousted the pastoral ode. And our military and naval experts, harassed by the Censor, take refuge in psychology.
The Kölnische Zeitung has published a whole article on "Mr. Punch." The writer, a Herr Professor, finds our cartoons lacking in "modest refinement." Indeed, he goes so far as to
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