Multitudes upon multitudes they throng
And thicken: who shall number their array?
They bid the peoples tremble and obey:
Their faces are set forward, all for wrong.
They trample on the covenant and are strong
And terrible. Who shall dare to say them nay?
How shall a little nation bar the way
Where that resistless host is borne along?
You never thought, O! gallant King, to bow
To overmastering force and stand aside.
Safe and secure you might have reigned. But now
Your Belgium is transfigured, glorified,
The friend of France and England, who avow
An Equal here, and thank the men who died.
H. M.
