cloth, souvenir

Souvenir cloth or handkerchief, WW1

yellow silk cloth; printed with illustration of flags of Allied nations, a Trumpeter and the words "Fall In"

"What will you lack, sonny, what will you lack

When the girls line up the street,

Shouting their love to the lads come back

From the foe they rushed to beat?

Will you send a strangled cheer to the sky

And grin till your cheeks are red?

But what will you lack when your mate goes by

With a girl who cuts you dead?

Where will you look, sonny, where will you look

When your children yet to be

Clamour to learn of the part you took

In the War that kept men free?

Will you say it was naught to you if France

Stood up to her foe or bunked?

But where will you look when they give the glance

That tells you they know you funked?

How will you fare, sonny, how will you fare

In the far-off winter night,

When you sit by the fire in an old man's chair

And your neighbours talk of the fight?

Will you slink away, as it were from a blow,

Your old head shamed and bent?

Or say - I was not with the first to go

But I went, thank God, I went?

Why do they call, sonny, why do they call

For men who are brave and strong?

Is it naught to you if your country fall,

And Right is smashed by Wrong?

Is it football still and the picture show,

The pub and the betting odds,

When your brothers stand to the tyrant's blow

And Britian's call is God's?"