I stand and watch the soldiers
Marching up and down,
Above the fresh green cricket-ground
Just outside the town.
I stand and watch and wonder
When in the English land
This poor fool Tommy Atkins
Will learn and understand?
Zulus, and Boers, and Arabs,
All fighting to be free,
Men and women and children,
Murdered and maimed has he.
In India and in Ireland
He's held the People down,
While the robber English gentleman
Took pound and penny and crown.
To make him false to his order,
What was it that they gave —
To make him his brother's oppressor?
The clothes and pay of a slave!
O thou poor fool, Tommy Atkins,
Thou wilt be wise that day
When, with eager eyes and clenched teeth,
Thou risest up to say:
“This is our well-loved England,
And I'll free it, if I can,
From every rotten bourgeois
And played-out gentleman!”