YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU

Published Nove 26, 1914
Aylmer Express Newspaper

The following verses were handed us by Mrs Fred Roberts, of this place, who received them from his mother, who picked them up on the streets of London, England.

FALL IN
What will you lack, sonny, what will
you lack
When the girls line up the streets,
Shouting their love to the lads come
back
From the foe they rushed to beat?
Will you send a strangled cheer to the
sky
And grin till your cheeks are red?
But what will you lack when you mate
goes by
With a girl who cuts you dead?

Where will you look, sonny, where will
you look
When your children yet to be
Clamor to hear of the part you took
In the war that kept men free?
Will you say it was naught to you if
France
Stood up to her foe or bunked?
But where will you look when they
Give the glance
That tells you they know you funked.

How will you fare, sonney, how will
you fare
In the far-off winter night
When you sit by the fire in an old man’s
chair
And your neighbors talk of the fight?
Will you slink away as it were from a
blow,
Your old head shamed and bent
Or say, I was not with the first to go,
But I went, thank God, I went.

Why do they call, sonny, why do they
call
For men who are brave and strongly?
Is it naught to you if your country fall,
And right is smashed with wrong?
Is it football still and the picture show,
The pub and the betting odds,
When your brothers stand to the tyrant’s
blow.
And Britain’s call is God’s.