<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Wife of Flanders</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Low</span> and brown barns, thatched and repatched and tattered,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Where I had seven sons until to-day,</p><p class="line">A little hill of hay your spur has scattered....</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">This is not Paris. You have lost the way.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">You, staring at your sword to find it brittle,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Surprised at the surprise that was your plan,</p><p class="line">Who, shaking and breaking barriers not a little,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Find never more the death-door of Sedan --</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Must I for more than carnage call you claimant,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Paying you a penny for each son you slay?</p><p class="line">Man, the whole globe in gold were no repayment</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">For what <em>you</em> have lost. And how shall I repay?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">What is the price of that red spark that caught me</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">From a kind farm that never had a name?</p><p class="line">What is the price of that dead man they brought me?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">For other dead men do not look the same.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">How should I pay for one poor graven steeple</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Whereon you shattered what you shall not know?</p><p class="line">How should I pay you, miserable people?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">How should I pay you everything you owe?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Unhappy, can I give you back your honour?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Though I forgave, would any man forget?</p><p class="line">While all the great green land has trampled on her</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The treason and terror of the night we met.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Not any more in vengeance or in pardon</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">An old wife bargains for a bean that's hers.</p><p class="line">You have no word to break: no heart to harden.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs.</p></div><p class="byline">Gilbert Keith Chesterton</p></body></html> · Great War