<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Langemarck at Ypres</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">This</span> is the ballad of Langemarck,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A story of glory and might;</p><p class="line">Of the vast Hun horde, and Canada's part</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In the great grim fight.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">It was April fair on the Flanders Fields,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">But the dreadest April then</p><p class="line">That ever the years, in their fateful flight,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Had brought to this world of men.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">North and east, a monster wall,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The mighty Hun ranks lay,</p><p class="line">With fort on fort, and iron-ringed trench,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Menacing, grim and gray.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And south and west, like a serpent of fire,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Serried the British lines,</p><p class="line">And in between, the dying and dead,</p><p class="line">And the stench of blood, and the trampled mud,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">On the fair, sweet Belgian vines.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And far to the eastward, harnessed and taut,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Like a scimitar, shining and keen,</p><p class="line">Gleaming out of that ominous gloom,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Old France's hosts were seen.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">When out of the grim Hun lines one night,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">There rolled a sinister smoke; --</p><p class="line">A strange, weird cloud, like a pale, green shroud,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And death lurked in its cloak.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">On a fiend-like wind it curled along</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Over the brave French ranks,</p><p class="line">Like a monster tree its vapours spread,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In hideous, burning banks</p><p class="line">Of poisonous fumes that scorched the night</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">With their sulphurous demon danks.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And men went mad with horror, and fled</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">From that terrible, strangling death,</p><p class="line">That seemed to sear both body and soul</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">With its baleful, flaming breath.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Till even the little dark men of the south,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Who feared neither God nor man,</p><p class="line">Those fierce, wild fighters of Afric's steppes,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Broke their battalions and ran: --</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Ran as they never had run before,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Gasping, and fainting for breath;</p><p class="line">For they knew 't was no human foe that slew;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And that hideous smoke meant death.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Then red in the reek of that evil cloud,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The Hun swept over the plain;</p><p class="line">And the murderer's dirk did its monster work,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">'Mid the scythe-like shrapnel rain;</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Till it seemed that at last the brute Hun hordes</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Had broken that wall of steel;</p><p class="line">And that soon, through this breach in the freeman's dyke,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">His trampling hosts would wheel; --</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And sweep to the south in ravaging might,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And Europe's peoples again</p><p class="line">Be trodden under the tyrant's heel,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Like herds, in the Prussian pen.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">But in that line on the British right,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">There massed a corps amain,</p><p class="line">Of men who hailed from a far west land</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Of mountain and forest and plain;</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Men new to war and its dreadest deeds,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">But noble and staunch and true;</p><p class="line">Men of the open, East and West,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Brew of old Britain's brew.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">These were the men out there that night,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">When Hell loomed close ahead;</p><p class="line">Who saw that pitiful, hideous rout,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And breathed those gases dread;</p><p class="line">While some went under and some went mad;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">But never a man there fled.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">For the word was "Canada," theirs to fight,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And keep on fighting still; --</p><p class="line">Britain said, fight, and fight they would,</p><p class="line">Though the Devil himself in sulphurous mood</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Came over that hideous hill.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Yea, stubborn, they stood, that hero band,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Where no soul hoped to live;</p><p class="line">For five, 'gainst eighty thousand men,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Were hopeless odds to give.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Yea, fought they on! 'T was Friday eve,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">When that demon gas drove down;</p><p class="line">'T was Saturday eve that saw them still</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Grimly holding their own;</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Sunday, Monday, saw them yet,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A steadily lessening band,</p><p class="line">With "no surrender" in their hearts,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">But the dream of a far-off land,</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Where mother and sister and love would weep</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">For the hushed heart lying still; --</p><p class="line">But never a thought but to do their part,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And work the Empire's will.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Ringed round, hemmed in, and back to back,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">They fought there under the dark,</p><p class="line">And won for Empire, God and Right,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">At grim, red Langemarck.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Wonderful battles have shaken this world,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Since the Dawn-God overthrew Dis;</p><p class="line">Wonderful struggles of right against wrong,</p><p class="line">Sung in the rhymes of the world's great song,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">But never a greater than this.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Bannockburn, Inkerman, Balaclava,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Marathon's godlike stand;</p><p class="line">But never a more heroic deed,</p><p class="line">And never a greater warrior breed,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In any war-man's land.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">This is the ballad of Langemarck,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A story of glory and might;</p><p class="line">Of the vast Hun horde, and Canada's part</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In the great, grim fight.</p></div><p class="byline">Wilfred Campbell</p></body></html> · Great War