University of Virginia Library

X

Ah! Forests of the Marne,
Forests of Gault, Traonne,
Of what avail is all your stubborn toil,
Of what avail is hers,
Rising resistant through so many years,
If now, from coast to coast,
This noble France be lost?
If now this golden France from beach to beach,
Her women, sisters of the race of Rome,
Her mothers, and that Mother divine, her soil,
Be wrest from us by force?
We have no need for speech.
Harden'd are we by Life: its iron pains,
Its shunless endings, do we know;
But since She—who is all we have,
And so much more—
Since she that bore, that fed us with the Earth's
Breast-love, before we heard of chains
Or guess'd the pangs of birth,
Save us, hath now no more resource;—
Since she whose shining colour'd plains,
Streams, fresh leaves, fire and dew,
Ran in our eyes and veins
When we ourselves were new
And ran about with flower-like breath
Before we ever knew
There was a thing call'd Death—
Herself is like to die,—
She, the convergence of our rays,
The Eternal smiling on our days,—
To pass from us, to die!—
Silent as you, O Forests of the Marne,
In her defence
Our deaths must be our eloquence.