<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Virgin of Albert</h1><h1 align="" class="head">(<span class="smallcaps">Notre Dame de </span><span class="smallcaps">Brebières</span>)</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Shyly</span> expectant, gazing up at Her,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">They linger, Gaul and Briton, side by side:</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Death they know well, for daily have they died,</p><p class="line">Spending their boyhood ever bravelier;</p><p class="line">They wait: here is not priest or chorister,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Birds skirt the stricken tower, terrified;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Desolate, empty, is the Eastertide,</p><p class="line">Yet still they wait, watching the Babe and Her.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Broken, the Mother stoops: the brutish foe</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Hurled with dull hate his bolts, and down She swayed,</p><p class="line">Down, till she saw the toiling swarms below, --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Platoons, guns, transports, endlessly arrayed:</p><p class="line">"Women are woe for them! let Me be theirs,</p><p class="line">And comfort them, and hearken all their prayers!"</p></div><p class="byline">George Herbert Clarke</p></body></html> · Great War