Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/76

 76 A FLEMISH VILLAGE

TO BELGIUM IN EXILE

AND of the desolate, Mother of tears,

Weeping your beauty marred and torn,

Your children tossed upon the spears,

Your altars rent, your hearths forlorn,

Where Spring has no renewing spell,

And Love no language save a long Farewell!

Ah, precious tears, and each a pearl

Whose price—for so in God we trust

Who saw them fall in that blind swirl

Of ravening flame and reeking dust—

The spoiler with his life shall pay,

When Justice at the last demands her Day.