As The 100th Anniversary Of The Beginning of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Starts ... Some Remembrances-Poet’s Corner

Laurence Binyon

Ypres

She was a city of patience; of proud name,

Dimmed by neglecting Time; of beauty and loss;

Of acquiescence in the creeping moss.

But on a sudden fierce destruction came

Tigerishly pouncing: thunderbolt and flame

Showered on her streets, to shatter them and toss

Her ancient towers to ashes. Riven across,

She rose, dead, into never-dying fame.

White against heavens of storm, a ghost, she is known

To the world's ends. The myriads of the brave

Sleep round her. Desolately glorified,

She, moon-like, draws her own far-moving tide

Of sorrow and memory; toward her, each alone,

Glide the dark dreams that seek an English grave.

The Pity of It

I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar

From rail-track and from highway, and I heard

In field and farmstead many an ancient word

Of local lineage like "Thu bist," "Er war,"

"Ich woll," "Er sholl," and by-talk similar,

Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird

At England's very loins, thereunto spurred

By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are.

Then seemed a Heart crying: "Whosoever they be

At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame

Between folk kin tongued even as are we,

"Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame;

May their familiars grow to shun their name,

And their brood perish everlastingly."