Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Massachusetts Poets. 1922.

Shipbuilders

THE GERMAN people reared them

An idol made of wood;

And Hindenburg before them

Lifelike and stupid stood.

To clothe him all in iron

And thus his soul express,

With nails and spikes they covered

His wooden nakedness.

And when they, thus had clothed him

All in a suit of mail,

Still came they, wild-eyed, looking

For space to drive a nail.

Whenever Teuton airmen

Slay boys and girls at play,

Or U-boats, drowning babies,

Create a holiday.

Then, gathering round their statue,

A happy German throng

Drive nails into the idol

To make him still more strong.

Avenge the babes, shipbuilders,

That on the seas have died;

Avenge the little children

Murdered for Wilhelm’s pride.

Come, gather at the shipyards,

And let your hammers ring,

For more than ships and cargoes

Waits on your fashioning.

Come, gather at the shipyards;

With every bolt you drive

Bethink you ’tis the Kaiser

Whose brutish head you rive.

Come, gather at the shipyards,

And swing with might and main;

’Tis Tirpitz and the Crown Prince

That you to-day have slain.

Come, gather at the shipyards,

And heat the metal hot,

For it is Bethmann Hollweg

You’re boiling in the pot.

Come, gather at the shipyards,—

And when the day is done,

You’ve spent it in driving spikes,

In Hindenburg the Hun.

Come, gather at the shipyards,

And toil with healthy hate,

For only you can save the world,

The Hun is at the gate.