Edward Thomas, 1878 - 1917

EDWARD THOMAS Anglo-Welsh Poet of the First World War

THIS IS NO CASE OF PETTY RIGHT OR WRONG


This is no case of petty right or wrong
That politicians or philosophers
Can judge. I hate not Germans, nor grow hot
With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers.
Beside my hate for one fat patriot
My hatred of the Kaiser is love true: –
A kind of god he is, banging a gong.
But I have not to choose between the two,
Or between justice and injustice. Dinned
With war and argument I read no more
Than in the storm smoking along the wind
Athwart1 the wood. Two witches' cauldrons roar.
From one the weather shall rise clear and gay;
Out of the other an England beautiful
And like her mother that died yesterday.
Little I know or care if, being dull,
I shall miss something that historians
Can rake out of the ashes when perchance2
The phoenix3 broods serene above their ken.
But with the best and meanest Englishmen
I am one in crying, God save England, lest
We lose what never slaves and cattle blessed.
The ages made her that made us from dust:
She is all we know and live by, and we trust
She is good and must endure, loving her so:
And as we love ourselves we hate her foe.

26 December, 1915

1 athwart - across
2 perchance - perhaps
3 phoenix - legendary bird that was able to grow again from its own ashes

Edward Thomas wrote THIS IS NO PETTY CASE OF RIGHT OR WRONG after a blazing row with his father who was a conventional patriot who demonised the Germans. The poem is truly patriotic, and is an interesting contrast with the patriotic war poems of Rupert Brooke.