Page:Patriotic pieces from the Great War, Jones, 1918.djvu/223

Rh When a mad dog comes down your village street, with the green foam in his jaws,

Do you greet him with Bibles and hymn-books, and lovingly bid him pause?

When a rattlesnake rises amidst your path, alert with its fiery sting,

Do you pet him, and pat him, and wish him well, and a song of welcome sing?

When a big-armed bully among the Powers says the folk of a little land

Must sprawl in the dirt and confess to a crime that never besmirched their land,

Do you blame that people that rises up a pigmy ready to fight,

A David aroused, with only a sling, defying Goliath's might?

When a vain war-lord with a swollen head, inflamed with a brute desire,

Through a little State that was lapped in peace comes tramping with blood and fire

Despoiling the fields and looting the towns—do you blame that blameless state

For rousing in Godlike righteous wrath and hitting with righteous hate?

And war is the great Arouser; it silences whimpering tongues;