Page:Flower of youth, poems in war time, Tynan, 1915.djvu/26

24 "WHAT TURNED THE GERMANS BACK?"

turned the German myriads back

From Paris whither they had won?

The sword dropped from their hold grown slack;

Children of Attila the Hun,

Like Attila, went backward driven

By a young shepherdess of Heaven.

A shepherdess is Genevieve,

And though her flock should wander light,

This shepherdess is quick to save

The black, the speckled and the white.

She takes her golden crook and goes

And deals destruction to its foes.

She who turned Attila back, so slim,

A shepherdess that keeps the flock,

Waited as once she did for him,

Slight as a reed or her own crook;

"Turn back in God's Name!" They went back.

The tide is stemmed for her sweet sake.