Poem ~ Arresting "Aliens" - buy British! -Thursday, 6 August 1914

As August month still glows new,

Warm days give way to slow evenings,

As by ‘the silver sea’ of summer places.

In resorts like blissful Felixstowe,

Linger a misleading normality.

Sun and sea belie a season’s sudden changes:

Forebodings begin to toll on business.

In waking conscious of what is before the country,

Repentant deserters strangely start to appear,

Now keen to return to their regiment or ship.

New rules are made to restrict aliens,

And Germans are arrested as potential spies.

Further xenophobia is merrily advertised,

From Bacon's War Maps, with warning not to buy

Foreign versions, that will no doubt lie –

While their own are proudly made by Englishmen.

Back in Bermondsey women storm a grocers,

Whose fury fuelled by rising prices,

Brings about a shop's early closure.

As August days still glow new across London,

The capital begins to live in time of war.

Are warnings of what is yet to come made open,

With discussions of new projectiles and armour plating:

Weapons could decide this nation’s fight for existence.

Still sober reality gives caution against rejoicing,

Before Britain is out of the darkest woods.

The warning claims an 'opening of a gigantic business.'

Already with three days gone war is prone to rumour.

Hard facts become rare, a haze forms round truth;

Suggested reports of German struggles in Belgium

While in reversal of previous reports come suggestions

That a British Active-class scout cruiser has been sunk.

In his popular appointment, Lord Kitchener rises

To become the eminent Secretary of War.

Elsewhere lands are firmly behind the mother country.

So awake the empire's proud dominions!

Now plans emerge for the aid of Belgium,

By expeditionary force and a papers report -

English Government has clear eyes what is ahead.

And adverts request for men not to hesitate,

But to join the forces as their fathers did before.

Still a Parliamentary footnote warns of disaster

As well as victory…

by Jamie Mann.

Anon., 2014. Daily Telegraph August 6 1914. The Telegraph, [online] 6 Aug. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11014510/Daily-Telegraph-August-6-1914.html [Accessed: 6th August 2014].

Mann, J., 2014. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 6 August 2014). 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11014510/Daily-Telegraph-August-6-1914.html

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