TO FRANCE

Sweet France, we greet thee with our cheers, our tears,

Our tardy swords! O sternly, wanly fair

In that red martyr-aureole thou dost wear!

Even for the sake of our bright pioneers,

Chapman, and Seeger, and such dear dead peers

Of thy dead sons, joyous and swift to dare

All fiery danger of the earth and air,

Forgive us, France, our hesitating years!

Quenchless as thine own spirit is our trust

That thou shalt spring resurgent, like the brave

Pure plume of Bayard, from the blood and dust

Of this grim combat-to-the-utterance,

Fresh as the foambow of the charging wave,

O plume of Europe, proud and delicate France!

Thou that a brave, brief space didst keep the gate

Against the German, saving all the West

By the subjection of thy shielding breast

To the brute blows and utmost shames of Fate;

Thou that in bonds of iron dost expiate

Thy nobleness as crime! Even thus oppressed,

Is not thy spirit mystically blest,

O little Belgium, marvellously great?

Thou that hast prized the soul above the flesh,

Dost thou not, starving, eat of angels’ bread?

With every sunrise crucified afresh,

Has not this guerdon for all time sufficed—

That thou shouldst wear upon thy haggard head

The awful honor of the Crown of Christ?