George Orwell’s poem, “As One Non-Combatant to Another (A Letter to ‘Obadiah Hornbooke’)” was published in the London Tribune on this day in 1943. This was Orwell’s reply to an earlier letter-to-the-editor which had advocated pacifism, this submitted by by Alex Comfort under a pseudonym. Orwell was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, and a sergeant in the Local Defense League only because he was too unhealthy to make it into the army; his poem shows him at his most outspoken on the topic of the war effort:

I’m not a fan for “fighting on the beaches,”
And still less for the “breezy uplands” stuff,
I seldom listen-in to Churchill’s speeches,
But I’d far sooner hear that kind of guff
Than your remark, a year or so ago,
That if the Nazis came you’d knuckle under
And peaceably “accept the status quo.”
Maybe you would! But I’ve a right to wonder
Which will sound better in the days to come,
“Blood, toil and sweat” or “Kiss the Nazi’s bum.”