To the Enemy, on His Achievement

Now wanes the third moon since your conquering host Was to have laid our weakling army low, And walked through France at will. For that loud boast What have you got to show?

A bomb that chipped a tower of Notre Dame, Leaving its mark like trippers' knives that scar The haunts of beauty—that's the best réclame You have achieved so far.

Paris, that through her humbled Triumph-Arch Was doomed to see you tread your fathers' tracks— Paris, your goal, now lies a six days' march Behind your homing backs.

Pressed to the borders where you lately passed Bulging with insolence and fat with pride, You stake your all upon a desperate cast To stem the gathering tide.

Eastward the Russian draws you to his fold, Content, on his own ground, to bide his day, Out of whose toils not many feet of old Found the returning way.

And still along the seas our watchers keep Their grip upon your throat with bands of steel, While that Armada, which should rake the deep, Skulks in its hole at Kiel.

So stands your record—stay, I cry you grace— I wronged you. There is Belgium, where your sword Has bled to death a free and gallant race Whose life you held in ward;

Where on your trail the smoking land lies bare Of hearth and homestead, and the dead babe clings About its murdered mother's breast—ah, there, Yes, you have done great things!