WWI American
Immigrant Poetry
(Henry Labouchere, distinguished English politician, writer, orator and journalist, was born 1831 and educated at Eaton; engaged in the consular service 1854 to 1864; Radical member parliament for Windsor, Middlesex and Northampton, respectively, from 1865 to 1880; vivacious and satirical of style in both writing and speaking; founder of “Truth.”)
LET the winds of the world make answer!
North, south, east, and west—
Where’er there is wealth to covet
Where’er are savage nations
To coddle, coerce or scare,
You may look for the vaunted emblem—
The flag of England is there.
Ay, it waves over the blazing hovels
Whence its African victims fly
To be shot by explosive bullets,
Or wretchedly starve and die;
Or where the beachcomber hammers
The isles of the southern sea,
From the peak of his hellish vessel,
The English flag flies free.
The Maori, full of hate, curses
With his fleeting, dying breath,
And the Arab hath hissed his curses
As he spat at its fold in death.
The hapless fellah hath feared it
On Tel el Kebir’s parched plain,
And the blood of the Zulu hath stained it
With a deep, indelible stain.
It has floated o’er scenes of pillage
And flaunted o’er deeds of shame;
It has waved o’er the fell marauder
As he ravished with sword and flame;
It has looked on ruthless slaughter
And assassination, dire and grim,
And has heard the shrieks of its victims
Drown even the jingo hymn.
Where is the flag of England?
Seek the land where the natives rot
And decay, and assured extinction
Must soon be the peoples’ lot.
Go to the once fair island
Where disease and death are rife,
And the greed of colossal commerce
Now fattens on human life.
Where is the flag of England?
Go sail where the rich galleons come
With their shoddy and loaded cotton,
And beer, and Bibles and rum.
Seek the land where brute force hath triumphed
And hypocrisy hath its lair,
And your question will thus be answered—
For the flag of England is there.