Panama and Other Poems Narrative and Occasional By Stephen Phillips: With a Frontispiece by Joseph Pennell |
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THE KAISER AND BELGIUM |
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 | Panama and Other Poems Narrative and Occasional |  |
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THE KAISER AND BELGIUM
He said: “Thou petty people, let me pass!What canst thou do but bow to me and kneel?”
But sudden a dry land caught fire like grass,
And answer hurtled but from shell and steel.
He looked for silence but a thunder came;
Upon him from Liège a leaden hail!
All Belgium flew up at his throat in flame,
Till at her gates amazed his legions qúail!
Take heed, for now on haunted ground thy tread,
There bowed a mightier War-Lord to his fall;
Fear! lest that very grass again grow red
With blood of German now, as then of Gaul!
If him whom God destroys He maddens first,
Then thy destruction slake thy madman's thirst.
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