Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/110

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Tis a twelve-day march to Paris, by the road our fathers travelled,

And the prize is half an empire when the scarlet road's unravelled—

Go you now across the border,

God's decree and William's order—

Climb the frowning Belgian ridges

With your naked swords agleam!

Seize the City of the Bridges—

Then get on, get on to Paris—

To the jewelled streets of Paris—

To the lovely woman, Paris, that has driven me to dream!"

A hundred thousand fighting men

They climbed the frowning ridges,

With their flaming swords drawn free

And their pennants at their knee.

They went up to their desire,

To the City of the Bridges,

With their naked brands outdrawn

Like the lances of the dawn!

In a swelling surf of fire,

Crawling higher—higher—higher—

Till they crumpled up and died

Like a sudden wasted tide,

And the thunder in their faces beat them down and flung them wide!

They had paid a thousand men,

Yet they formed and came again,

For they heard the silver bugles sounding challenge to their pride,

And they rode with swords agleam

For the glory of a dream,

And they stormed up to the cannon's mouth and withered there, and died.…