<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Retinue</h1><p class="byline"> KATHARINE LEE BATES <br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/><span class="smallcaps">IN The Atlantic Monthly</span><br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/>Permission to reproduce in this book</p><div class="stanza"><p class="line">ARCHDUKE FRANCIS FERDINAND, Austrian heir-apparent,</p><p class="line">Rideth through the Shadow Land, not a lone knight errant,</p><p class="line">But captain of a mighty train, millions upon millions,</p><p class="line">Armies of the battle slain, hordes of dim civilians;</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">German ghosts who see their works with tortured eyes, the sorry</p><p class="line">Spectres of sacred tyrants, Turks hunted by their quarry,</p><p class="line">Liars, plotters red of hand--like waves of poisonous gases,</p><p class="line">Sweeping through the Shadow Land the host of horror passes;</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Spirits bright as broken blades drawn for truth and honor,</p><p class="line">Sons of Belgium, pallid maids, martyrs who have won her</p><p class="line">Love eternal, bleeding breasts of the French defiance,</p><p class="line">Russians on enraptured quests, Freedom's proud alliance.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Through that hollow hush of doom, vast, unvisioned regions, </p><p class="line">Led by Kitchener of Khartum, march the English legions:</p><p class="line">Kilt and shamrock, maple leaf, dreaming Hindu faces,</p><p class="line">Brows of glory, eyes of grief, arms of lost embraces.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Like a moaning tide of woe, midst those pale battalions </p><p class="line">From the Danube and the Po, Arabs and Australians, </p><p class="line">Pours a ghastly multitude that breaks the heart of pity,</p><p class="line">Wreckage of some shell-bestrewed waste that was a city;</p><p class="line">Flocking from the murderous seas, from the famished lowland,</p><p class="line">From the blazing villages of Serbia and Poland,</p><p class="line">Woman phantoms, baby wraiths, trampled by war's blindness,</p><p class="line">Horses, dogs, that put their faiths in human loving kindness. </p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Tamburlane, Napoleon, envious Alexander </p><p class="line">Peer in wonder at the wan, tragical commander, </p><p class="line">Archduke Francis Ferdinand--when shall his train be ended ?--</p><p class="line">Of all the lords of Shadow Land most royally attended! </p></div></body></html> · Great War