<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">O Glorious France</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">You</span> have become a forge of snow-white fire,</p><p class="line">A crucible of molten steel, O France!</p><p class="line">Your sons are stars who cluster to a dawn</p><p class="line">And fade in light for you, O glorious France!</p><p class="line">They pass through meteor changes with a song</p><p class="line">Which to all islands and all continents</p><p class="line">Says life is neither comfort, wealth, nor fame,</p><p class="line">Nor quiet hearthstones, friendship, wife nor child,</p><p class="line">Nor love, nor youth's delight, nor manhood's power,</p><p class="line">Nor many days spent in a chosen work,</p><p class="line">Nor honored merit, nor the patterned theme</p><p class="line">Of daily labor, nor the crowns nor wreaths</p><p class="line">Of seventy years.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:20%">These are not all of life,</p><p class="line">O France, whose sons amid the rolling thunder</p><p class="line">Of cannon stand in trenches where the dead</p><p class="line">Clog the ensanguined ice. But life to these</p><p class="line">Prophetic and enraptured souls is vision,</p><p class="line">And the keen ecstasy of fated strife,</p><p class="line">And divination of the loss as gain,</p><p class="line">And reading mysteries with brightened eyes</p><p class="line">In fiery shock and dazzling pain before</p><p class="line">The orient splendour of the face of Death,</p><p class="line">As a great light beside a shadowy sea;</p><p class="line">And in a high will's strenuous exercise,</p><p class="line">Where the warmed spirit finds its fullest strength</p><p class="line">And is no more afraid, and in the stroke</p><p class="line">Of azure lightning when the hidden essence</p><p class="line">And shifting meaning of man's spiritual worth</p><p class="line">And mystical significance in time</p><p class="line">Are instantly distilled to one clear drop</p><p class="line">Which mirrors earth and heaven.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:20%">This is life</p><p class="line">Flaming to heaven in a minute's span</p><p class="line">When the breath of battle blows the smouldering spark.</p><p class="line">And across these seas</p><p class="line">We who cry Peace and treasure life and cling</p><p class="line">To cities, happiness, or daily toil</p><p class="line">For daily bread, or trail the long routine</p><p class="line">Of seventy years, taste not the terrible wine</p><p class="line">Whereof you drink, who drain and toss the cup</p><p class="line">Empty and ringing by the finished feast;</p><p class="line">Or have it shaken from your hand by sight</p><p class="line">Of God against the olive woods.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">As Joan of Arc amid the apple trees</p><p class="line">With sacred joy first heard the voices, then</p><p class="line">Obeying plunged at Orleans in a field</p><p class="line">Of spears and lived her dream and died in fire,</p><p class="line">Thou, France, hast heard the voices and hast lived</p><p class="line">The dream and known the meaning of the dream,</p><p class="line">And read its riddle: how the soul of man</p><p class="line">May to one greatest purpose make itself</p><p class="line">A lens of clearness, how it loves the cup</p><p class="line">Of deepest truth, and how its bitterest gall</p><p class="line">Turns sweet to soul's surrender.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:20%">And you say:</p><p class="line">Take days for repetition, stretch your hands</p><p class="line">For mocked renewal of familiar things:</p><p class="line">The beaten path, the chair beside the window,</p><p class="line">The crowded street, the task, the accustomed sleep,</p><p class="line">And waking to the task, or many springs</p><p class="line">Of lifted cloud, blue water, flowering fields --</p><p class="line">The prison-house grows close no less, the feast</p><p class="line">A place of memory sick for senses dulled</p><p class="line">Down to the dusty end where pitiful Time</p><p class="line">Grown weary cries Enough!</p></div><p class="byline">Edgar Lee Masters</p></body></html> · Great War