Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3820/Ode to the Spirit of Wireless Victory
ODE TO THE SPIRIT OF WIRELESS VICTORY.
(An attempt, suggested by certain Marconigrams, to shed still further light on the nature of the principal Teutonic deity.)
What to thee are marching legions,
Cannon smoke and sabre thrust,
Goddess of the cloud-rimmed regions
In whose might the Germans trust?
Though, however high and regal,
Kingly pomp may break and bend
Soiled with murder (labelled legal),
Thou, more active than the eagle,
Thou endurest to the end.
Thou wast not behind their banners
When they scoured the Belgian plain,
When they taught their Teuton manners
By the wreck of farm and fane;
Clear of battle's mire and fury
On those sightless feet and hid,
Thou wast wafted with the story
Saying this was German glory
To Chicago and Madrid.
Long e'er Paris heard the thunder,
Herald of the Uhlan's lance,
Thou wast making Stockholm wonder
At the dying flame of France:
Not on wires, with no word written,
Thou hadst trod thine airy track,
Faster than the mailéd mitten,
And behold our fleet was smitten
Somewhere near the Skager Rack.
So. And when their lines are broken,
When their shrapnel falls less fast,
Shalt thou fail to send a token
Undefeated to the last?
Surely not. Red devastation
Still shall urge by land and sea
Every proud advancing nation
While Marconi's installation
Rules the skies of Germany.
Still when pagan peoples sever
Railway line and telegraph
Thou shalt keep thy staunch endeavour,
Thou shalt scatter us like chaff.
Still, O goddess of the Prussians,
Thou shalt sound thy trump of tin
Undeterred by rude concussions
While the Frenchmen hail the Russians
On the flagstones of Berlin.