I9 J 4] Song of the Conquered Nations 433 



which he counted on His Majesty to keep. Thus faced, the case was 

 laid before the Cabinet, but was found to fail as a convincing argu- 

 ment for war. It was then that Asquith, with his lawyer's instinct, at 

 a second Cabinet brought forward the neutrality of Belgium as a better 

 plea than the other to lay before a British jury, and by representing 

 the neutrality treaties of 183 1 and 1839 as entailing an obligation on 

 England to fight (of which the text of the treaties contained no word) 

 obtained the Cabinet's consent and war was declared. This, I have 

 full reason to know, was the true history of this astonishing venture 

 entered on by Asquith through a miscalculation of the military value 

 of Russia, and saved only from supreme disaster by the fighting 

 tenacity of our ignorant boy soldiers, who believed what they were 

 told, and throughout the war pretended, that it was one for liberty 

 waged in the defence of weak nations, and to set the whole world free. 

 I write out here, as my last word to-day, George Wyndham's pa- 

 thetic verses, repeated to me more than once by him, and which have 

 rung ever since in my ears. I read them as prophetic of the world's 

 doom, a doom, alas, which he, by a strange contradiction of his better 

 nature, was nevertheless among the most active to bring about : 



The waves climb to the cliff and the cliff repels them, 

 So the waves sing their long desire of the land. 



The winds ask their way of the night, but she never tells them, 

 Complaining still of a sorrow she cannot understand. 



The conquered Nations of Earth have lost their birthright, 

 They sing of the long ago when their rulers were kings, 



All their value that rose once proud to set the Earth right 

 Sinks in a sob of sorrow and sobbing sings. 



Woe for the kings who conquer, their pride, their glory ! 



The wage of victory see, new battles to be fought — 

 Those who adventuring lose, sing their souls in story 



In the voice of wind and waves whose endeavour is nought. 



The music heard afar in the void's unanswering blindness 



Is only of love poured out and lost in space. 

 All songs are children of love and the loved's unkindness 



Sad with rain that implores the beloved's face. 



These are the voices of God to the lost souls' anguish, 

 Wounded souls that complain when they cannot climb, 



Souls that aspire to heaven yet only languish, 

 Captives of life in pain and the bonds of Time. 



