A Flag!

 

       A poem can often say in a few verses what a book takes several chapters to say. So with all the recent fawning at the feet of that symbol of British brutal imperialism, I thought the following lyrics from a song by The Wolfe Tones. The lyrics of The Butcher's Apron originate from a poem written by Henry Dupre LaBouchere.

 

The Butcher's Apron

Where is the flag of England? Go North, South, East or West. Wherever there's wealth to

plunder or land to be possessed. Wherever there's feeble races to frighten, coerce or scare.

You'll find the butcher's apron, the English flag is there!

It waits upon blazing hovels where African victims died, to be shot the explosive bullets or

wretchedly starve and die, and where the pirate hammers the isles of southern seas, at the

peak of the hellish vessel the English flag is free!

The Maori often cursed it with his bitterness dying breath, and the Arab hath hissed his hatred

as he spat at its folds in death, and the helpless Hindu feared it, and the Kenyan did the

same, and the Irish blood hath stained it, with a deep indelible stain.

Where is the flag of England? Go North, South, East or West. Wherever there's wealth to

plunder or land to be possessed. Wherever there's feeble races to frighten, coerce or scare.

You'll find the butcher's apron, the English flag is there!

It is floated on scenes of pillage, it is flaunted on deeds of shame. It has waved o'er fell

marauders, as they ravished with sword and flame, it has looked upon on ruthless slaughter,

and massacred dire and grim, and has heard the shrieks of victims drowning the jingo hymn.

Where is the flag of England? Seek lands where the natives rot. Where decay, and assured

extinction must soon be a people's lot. Go search for once glad islands where death and

disease are rife, and the greed of colossal commerce now fattens on human life.

Where is the flag of England? Go North, South, East or West. Wherever there's wealth to

plunder or land to be possessed. Wherever there's feeble races to frighten, coerce or scare.

You'll find the butcher's apron, the English flag is there!

Where is the flag of England? Go sail where rich boats come. With shoddy and loaded

cottons, and beer and Bibles and guns. Go where brute forces triumphed, and hypocrisy

makes its lair. In your question you'll find the answer, it was and still is there!

Where is the flag of England? Go North, South, East or West. Wherever there's wealth to

plunder or land to be possessed. Wherever there's feeble races to frighten, coerce or scare.

You'll find the butcher's apron, the English flag is there

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