A CALL TO BRITAIN (1939 - 1942)

Boom!

Son as the pad pad of a cat in a room,

Unheard of the company twittering—boom Nobody is listening, in their hearts lifting its head No joy hearkens; sense-shattered articles Scattered in brigt, noise-profusion Strifeless, stalks

Doom.Like a ghost the e pad pad among the multitude, Loud multitudes of the hopeless, One active In the deserts of the passive. Let us acquiesce! Let us acquiesce in the seem-gay, the plenitude 01 our brightness !• Let us be gay!

Let us be gay! Nobody knowsthe way, Nohody! Boom!

Soft, ever softly—never a quiet-listening heart, Sense-aware, self-gathered, solitary.

Al! is noise, noise and assembling hilarity. Everything is on the air, in the air, everywhere, There is no silence, never a I-do-not-know, Never a refusal, a passionate withdrawal, Not the boldness of a winter snowdrop Anywhere.

Nature! ah! where shall we find it? We are City-hidden, factory-furnished, mob-minded, Emptied of delight, we have lost it. Not a star Is known to us directly, is named by us, All is second-hand, paper-printed, cried on the air.

Every minute, every minute has a message in it Not for us, not ours, not addressed to us but anonymous, For we have lost unity, we are discontinuous.

Boom!

It is unheard, it is inaudible, it is upon us,

Pad pcd! we are lost, it is here in the midst of us,

Who can understand it? None of us :

I, is so strange, so different Nothing is as it seemed to us.

Who shall say what it is, who shall speak for us? Voiceless we wait. Is there not one of us Who can speak for us?

Listen, there is a voice, that is one of us

Speaking with authority, simply ; Yes, that is one of us, there is no nonsense in it; I: is a good voice, individual, yes, it is real ; Here is a man, a real man, not a mask, Not, an appeaser, a well-wisher, a mouther of other men's words. Ah! now there is hope in our heart and in our hands Swords.

Where is the enemy? Here, the enemy is among us. Do not think he is elsewhere, he is everywhere : Do not think he is a foreigner, a refugee. This is a call to those who can and will be free Anywhere and at all times, who would seal Their will with their life's blood, who can find Salvation in the mud.

Out of the mud arise strange and beautiful things—

A simple and a dauntless man: Let us hail England's leader, Churchill,

Aman of courage and in his generation wise ;

Not a superman or a false Messiah but a man Where there were so very few and when

Cowards, liars, hypocrites moved among us as men.

Pad pad! Honey is on the lips of the misleaders

All those who walk in darkness flash a false light They will never, as Churchill, say such a simple. thing as fight, Fight, fight ! Let us leave to future generations all cant about right. We must feel it within and not listen to it without, Never will you find what it is all about, Aever mind.

Be not blind, And beware!

All deceivers talk with the same tongue, Talk about children and women and, beyond all, peace.

But they are not prepared to fight for it, they would steal it, Steal it from their brothers and then sell it.

Have a care! They are those who traffic in the Ideal

Carrying peace peace in their mouths but in their souls

Hell. Boom!

Let it be the enemy's doom, Salute him, he has made us free, He is our • salvation if we can be Truly his enemy. W. J. TURNER.