<h2><SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_26" title="26"> </SPAN>YPRES</h2>
<p class="subheading small-caps">September, 1915</p>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line"><span class="small-caps">Push</span> on, my Lord of Würtemberg, across the Flemish Fen!</div>
<div class="line indent2">See where the lure of Ypres calls you!</div>
<div class="line">There's just one ragged British line of Plumer's weary men;</div>
<div class="line">It's true they held you off before, but venture it again,</div>
<div class="line indent2">Come, try your luck, whatever fate befalls you!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line">You've been some little time, my Lord. Perhaps you scarce remember</div>
<div class="line indent2">The far-off early days of that resistance.</div>
<SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_27" title="27"> </SPAN>
<div class="line">Was it in October last? Or was it in November?</div>
<div class="line">And now the leaves are turning and you stand in mid-September</div>
<div class="line indent2">Still staring at the Belfry in the distance.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line">Can you recall the fateful day—a day of drifting skies,</div>
<div class="line indent2">When you started on the famous Calais onset?</div>
<div class="line">Can it be the War-Lord blundered when he urged the enterprise?</div>
<div class="line">For surely it's a weary while since first before your eyes</div>
<div class="line indent2">That old Belfry rose against the sunset.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_28" title="28"> </SPAN>
<div class="line">You held council at your quarters when the budding Alexanders</div>
<div class="line indent2">And the Pickel-haubed Cæsars gave their reasons.</div>
<div class="line">Was there one amongst that bristle-headed circle of commanders</div>
<div class="line">Ever ventured the opinion that a little town of Flanders</div>
<div class="line indent2">Would hold you pounded here through all the seasons?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line">You all clasped hands upon it. You would break the British line,</div>
<div class="line indent2">You would smash a road to westward with your host,</div>
<div class="line">The howitzers should thunder and the Uhlan lances shine</div>
<SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_29" title="29"> </SPAN>
<div class="line">Till Calais heard the blaring of the distant “Wacht am Rhein,”</div>
<div class="line indent2">As you topped the grassy uplands of the coast.</div>
<div class="line">Said the Graf von Feuer-Essen, “It's a fact beyond discussion,</div>
<div class="line indent2">That man to man we can outfight the foe.</div>
<div class="line">There is valour in the French, there is patience in the Russian,</div>
<div class="line">But blend all war-like virtues and you get the lordly Prussian,”</div>
<div class="line indent2">And the bristle-headed murmured, “<i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Das ist so.</i>”</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line">“And the British,” cried another, “they are mercenary cattle,</div>
<div class="line indent2">Without one noble impulse of the soul,</div>
<div class="line">Degenerate and drunken; if the dollars chink and rattle,</div>
<SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_30" title="30"> </SPAN>
<div class="line">'Tis the only sort of music that will call them to the battle.”</div>
<div class="line indent2">And all the bristle-headed cried, “<i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Ja wohl!</i>”</div>
<div class="line">And so next day your battle rolled across the Menin Plain,</div>
<div class="line indent2">Where Capper's men stood lonely to your wrath.</div>
<div class="line">You broke him, and you broke him, but you broke him all in vain,</div>
<div class="line">For he and his contemptibles kept closing up again,</div>
<div class="line indent2">And the khaki bar was still across your path.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line">And on the day when Gheluvelt lay smoking in the sun,</div>
<div class="line indent2">When Von Deimling stormed so hotly in the van,</div>
<SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_31" title="31"> </SPAN>
<div class="line">You smiled as Haig reeled backwards and you thought him on the run,</div>
<div class="line">But, alas for dreams that vanish, for before the day was done</div>
<div class="line indent2">It was you, my Lord of Würtemberg, that ran.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line">A dreary day was that—but another came, more dreary,</div>
<div class="line indent2">When the Guard from Arras led your fierce attacks,</div>
<div class="line">Spruce and splendid in the morning were the Potsdam Grenadiere,</div>
<div class="line">But not so spruce that evening when they staggered spent and weary,</div>
<div class="line indent2">With those cursed British storming at their backs.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_32" title="32"> </SPAN>
<div class="line">You knew—your spies had told you—that the ranks were scant and thin,</div>
<div class="line indent2">That the guns were short of shell and very few,</div>
<div class="line">By all Bernhardi's maxims you were surely bound to win,</div>
<div class="line">There's the open town before you. Haste, my Lord, and enter in,</div>
<div class="line indent2">Or the War-Lord may have telegrams for you.</div>
<div class="line">Then came the rainy winter, when the price was ever dearer,</div>
<div class="line indent2">Every time you neared the prize of which you dreamed,</div>
<div class="line">Each day the Belfry faced you but you never brought it nearer,</div>
<div class="line">Each night you saw it clearly but you never saw it clearer.</div>
<div class="line indent2">Ah, what a weary time it must have seemed!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_33" title="33"> </SPAN>
<div class="line">At last there came the Easter when you loosed the coward gases,</div>
<div class="line indent2">Surely you have got the rascals now!</div>
<div class="line">You could see them spent and choking as you watched them thro' your glasses,</div>
<div class="line">Yes, they choke, but never waver, and again the moment passes</div>
<div class="line indent2">Without one leaf of laurel for your brow.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line">Then at Hooge you had them helpless, for their guns were one to ten,</div>
<div class="line indent2">And you blasted trench and traverse at your will,</div>
<div class="line">You had them dead and buried, but they still sprang up again.</div>
<div class="line">“<i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Donnerwetter!</i>” cried your Lordship, “<i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Donnerwetter!</i>” cried your men,</div>
<div class="line indent2">For their very ghosts were guarding Ypres still.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_34" title="34"> </SPAN>
<div class="line">Active, Guards, Reserve—men of every corps and name</div>
<div class="line indent2">That the bugles of the War-Lord muster in,</div>
<div class="line">Each in turn you tried them, but the story was the same;</div>
<div class="line">Play it how you would, my Lord, you never won the game,</div>
<div class="line indent2">No, never in a twelvemonth did you win.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line">A year, my Lord of Würtemberg—a year, or nearly so,</div>
<div class="line indent2">Since first you faced the British <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">vis-à-vis</i>!</div>
<div class="line">Your learned Commandanten are the men who ought to know,</div>
<div class="line">But to ordinary mortals it would seem a trifle slow,</div>
<div class="line indent2">If you really mean to travel to the sea.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_35" title="35"> </SPAN>
<div class="line">If you cannot <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">straf</i> the British, since they <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">strafen</i> you so well,</div>
<div class="line indent2">You can safely smash the town that lies so near,</div>
<div class="line">So it's down with arch and buttress, down with belfry and with bell,</div>
<div class="line">And it's <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">hoch</i> the seven-seven that can drop the petrol shell</div>
<div class="line indent2">On the shrines that pious hands have loved to rear!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="line">Fair Ypres was a relic of the soul of other days,</div>
<div class="line indent2">A poet's dream, a wanderer's delight,</div>
<div class="line">We will keep it as a symbol of your brute Teutonic ways</div>
<div class="line">That millions yet unborn may come and curse you as they gaze</div>
<div class="line indent2">At this token of your impotence and spite.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_36" title="36"> </SPAN>
<div class="line">For shame, my Lord of Würtemberg! Across the Flemish Fen</div>
<div class="line indent2">See where the little army calls you.</div>
<div class="line">It's just the old familiar line of fifty thousand men,</div>
<div class="line">They've beat you once or twice, my Lord, but venture it again,</div>
<div class="line indent2">Come, try your luck, whatever fate befalls you.</div>
</div></div>
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