Classic Poem

Broadcast across the as yet unbeaconed dark,
I heard the shout of that symposiarch
Whose voice, like some Gargantuan-mouthed grotesque,
Demanded silence for the honoured guest.
Then—when prolonged applauding had subsided—
Kipling, that legendary name, confided
In us—a host of atmospheric ears—
His planned post-mortem on the post-war years.

Suavely severe—not one bleak syllable blurred—
In dulcet-bitter and prophetic tones
(Each word full charged with dynamite deferred)
He disinterred a battlefield of bones . . .
And then reminded us that our attempt
To put all war behind us with the last one
Had been a dream administrators dreamt;
In fact a virtuous fallacy—and a vast one.
Meanwhile his audience, mystified at first,
Sat spell-bound while he preached with barbed conviction,
Who, through implied anathemas, re-cursed
Our old opponents in that four years' friction.
And if indeed it was the astringent truth
He told with such incomparable concision—
That we must now re-educate our youth
With ‘Arm or perish’ as their ultimate vision—
Let us at least be candid with the world
And stitch across each Union Jack unfurled
‘No bargain struck with Potsdam is put over
Unless well backed by bombers—and Jehovah!’