Page:Patriotic pieces from the Great War, Jones, 1918.djvu/94

90 II

Forty years of preparation,

All at a tyrant's will,

For forty years, a nation

In one eternal drill;

His furnaces ablazing

With case of mighty guns,

Shipyards crammed with seacraft

And dreadnaughts, tons on tons;

Learn'd men concocting poison,

Devising gun and snare,

To ruin a friendly neighbor

And slay him unaware.

No enemy was moving,

No flag of war unfurled,

He plotted 'gainst a peaceful,

An unsuspecting world.

And yet for all his well-laid trains,

For all the fires he fanned,

For all the things he bought and sold.

And all the plots he planned:

He shall not pull it off, my boy,

He can not put it through,

He's up against a world in arms

Of fearless men and true.