Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3830/Peace with Honour

by E. G. V. Knox

PEACE WITH HONOUR.

(Being a slight amplification, from another quarter, of the lines addressed to "Mr. Bernard Jaw" in last week's "Punch.")

Oft as I've wondered with a weary sigh
 At Mr. Shaw's incorrigible habit
Of always seeing England with an eye
 That knows the armour's joint and where to stab it,
   And, sometimes taken by his style,
   Have half believed his taunts of guile,
   But oftener set them down to bile
 And eating too much green-stuff, like a rabbit;

I've dreamed a dream that, when the drums are still
 And stern Bellona, from her steel unbodiced,
Regrets the overthrow of Kaiser Bill
 (Of all strange cranks, excepting one, the oddest),
   Disarmament and gentleness
   May also come to G. B. S.,
   And, turned from wrath, he shall confess
 Britain in triumph was supremely modest.

A newer, better Poland shall arise,
 And Schleswig-Holstein be extremely perky;
Alsace-Lorraine shall look with loving eyes
 To a clear dawn, where now the mists are murky,
   And messengers of peace shall stray
   On Balkan mounts, and my Aunt May
   Has frequently been heard to say
 That she intends to give the Belgians Turkey.

But what of England? Shall she not bestow
 Quiet upon the world, and ordered measure,
And take no vantage of the fallen foe
 In land (which is but dust) and sordid treasure?
   But rather of her kindness yield
   The balm whereby hurt wounds are healed,
   That couchant in the selfsame field
 Lion and lamb may masticate at leisure.

Let it be written in the terms of peace,
 And evermore on brassy tablets graven,
That England shall demand no right nor lease
 Of frontier nor of town, nor armoured haven,
   But cede with unreluctant paw
   To Germans and to German law
   The whole of this egregious Shaw,
 And only re-annex the Bard of Avon.
Evoe.

 

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