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