Classic Poem

Marne's stately water,
That melancholy many-winding river,
Hath many a battle known
Since by her island of the beechen copses,
Boar-hunting palace of the Merovings
And full this month of autumn-glancing wings,
Pale Fredegonda drowned her lover's son —
But like this battle, none.
Marne, who beneath this chalky spur
From woods of Gault and forest of Traonne,
Herself doth milky tribute rivers drain, —
Marne, the far-wanderer,
Stretches not wide as this day's battle line.
Now from this bosky mountain spur
Beneath the ruined castle Mondement
Look down, look there,
Towards Champenoise La Fere,
Over moon-barren heaths, the vast chalk plain.
Bald moors of high Champagne
Scattered with spindling woods of birch and pine
By the straggled marsh-belt of Saint Gond, —
By Reuves and Broussy, Oyes and Bannes,
Little marsh-villages with scarce a name,
There hangs your lot and mine.
Nightlong the marshfire Death hangs flickering
Above the pale-lipp'd middle of the line,
Watching — from Verdun wall to Paris wall —
Whether we stand or fall,
Whether the European liberties
Pass into dust
Like a thing temporal
That dureth no long while
Or shall outlast us all.
These are the claims august,
And this the fate that shall be settled there.