142 REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN
��THE NATIONS' DAVID
Erect before Hell's hurricane, between the Germans
and the sea, Belgium, still smiling through your pain; still, in
the hour of ruin, free ; While yet the cannon's note resounds along each
poplar-bordered way, O, bleeding Belgium, to your wounds what mankind
owes what man may say ?
Long years, while battle came and went afar at
Fate's malign caprice, Your kindly folk, serene, content, pursued the
pleasant ways of peace. They promised, all the mighty ones: "In that
calm land shall not be heard The thunder of our angry guns" — Kaiser and King,
they pledged their word.
And then, unwarning, arrogant, the cut-throat liar
of Berlin Tore into shreds his covenant: his armed hosts
were swarming in
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