Classic Poem

Givenchy village lies a wreck, Givenchy Church is bare,
No more the peasant maidens come to say their vespers there.
The altar rails are wrenched apart, with rubble littered o'er,
The sacred, broken sanctuary-lamp lies smashed upon the floor;
And mute upon the crucifix He looks upon it all—
The great white Christ, the shrapnel-scourged, upon the eastern wall.
He sees the churchyard delved by shells, the tombstones flung about,
And dead men's skulls, and white, white bones the shells have shovelled out;
The trenches running line by line through meadow fields of green,
The bayonets on the parapets, the wasting flesh between:
Around Givenchy's ruined church the levels, poppy-red,
Are set apart for silent hosts, the legions of the dead.

And when at night on sentry-go, with danger keeping tryst,
I see upon the crucifix the blood-stained form of Christ
Defiled and maimed, the merciful on vigil all the time,
Pitying his children's wrath, their passion and their crime.
Mute, mute He hangs upon His Cross, the symbol of His pain,
And as men scourged Him long ago, they scourge Him once again—
There in the lonely war-lit night to Christ the Lord I call,
“Forgive the ones who work Thee harm. O Lord, forgive us all.”