HENRI DE REGNIER
Weep not, thou desecrated, shamed and rent.
Consumed with fire and with blood-shed spent.
Small strength have they that hunt us from thy fold
To loosen love's indissoluble hold,
And brighter than the flames about thy pyre
Our exiled faith shall spring for thee, and higher.
We shall return. Let Time reverse the glass.
Homeless and scattered from thy face we pass.
Through rain and tempest flying from our doors.
On seas unfriendly swept to stranger shores.
But, O you friends unknown that wait us there.
We ask no pity, though your bread we share,
For he who, flying from the fate of slaves
With brow indignant and with empty hand,
Has left his house, his country and his graves,
Comes like a Pilgrim from a Holy Land.
Receive him thus, if in his blood there be
One drop of Belgium's immortality.
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