Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/170

 144 REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN

They came, with eyes that looked on death ; not driven slaves, but conscious men :

The Brugan burgher scant of breath, the lean- limbed hunter of Ardennes.

Their part it was to hold the gate, the narrow gate,

against a foe Outnumbering scores to one — to wait till Death

alone should bid them go. And how they held it ! Man and child ; about Liege

where Leman fed Blood-hungry Prussians blood and piled the

meadows with heroic dead ;

While village after village fell, cottage and church

engulfed in smoke ; While all the land became a Hell and served to turn

a Teuton joke ; While Belgian women prayed in vain for German

mercy, trusting, fond ; While German "Culture" burned Louvain, and

German tenderness Termonde :

You did it, Little Belgium — you ! You stopped

the dyke with half your sons ; You did what no one else could do against the

Vandals and the Huns !

�� �