Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/117

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The Life Guards, mud and blood for the scarlet and the plume,

And they hurled back the foeman as the wind the sea spume,

From Bixschoote to Baecelaere and down to the Lys river.

But the huge Hun masses yet mounted more and more,

Like a giant wave gathering to whelm the sweet shore,

While swift the exultant foam runs on before and over.

Where that foam was leaping,

With bayonets, or with none,

The cooks and the service men

Ran upon the Hun.

The cooks and the service men charged and charged together

Moussy's cuirassiers, on foot, with spur and sabre;

Helmed and shining fought they as warriors fought of yore—

Till calm fell sinister as the hush at the whirlwind's core,

From Bixschoote to Baecelaere and down to the Lys river.

Lo! the Emperor launched on us his guard of old renown,

Stepping in parade-march, as they step through Berlin town,

On the chill road to Gheluveldt, in the dark before the dawning.

Heavily tolled on them

Mortal mouths of guns,

Gallantly, gallantly

Came the flower of the Huns.

Proud men they marched, like an avalanche on us falling,

Prouder men they met, in the dark before the dawning.

Seven to one they came against us to shatter us and drown,

One to seven in the woodland we fought them up and down,

In the sad November woodland, when all the skies were mourning.

The long battle thundered till a waxing moon might wane,

Thrice they broke the exhausted line that held them on the plain,

And thrice like billows they went back, from viewless bounds retiring.