<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Yser.</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Sweet</span> and soft was thy stream, Yser,</p><p class="line">As it first sang the song of the Spirit that wrought thee;</p><p class="line">When down to thy brim came the dry-tongued hare,</p><p class="line">And the little low hills their moist tribute brought thee.</p><p class="line">Lithe, yet lowly,</p><p class="line">Like a maid half-holy,</p><p class="line">As thy lover the sun in the white dawn caught thee.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Sad and sluggish thy tide, Yser,</p><p class="line">When man cast his mantle of sin about thee,</p><p class="line">And the mean alley stoops to the wharfinger's stair,</p><p class="line">And the sodden string of the barges flout thee.</p><p class="line">Sad and shamed,</p><p class="line">Like a wild thing tamed,</p><p class="line">As the slimy lock-gates dare thee and doubt thee.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Red and royal thy flood, Yser,</p><p class="line">When the nations flock to debate thy fording,</p><p class="line">And the great guns crash, and the bugles blare,</p><p class="line">And the blood soaks into thy banks for hoarding.</p><p class="line">Red, rose-red,</p><p class="line">Is thy bosom with dead,</p><p class="line">As the shells strike home on the frail bridge-boarding.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">It is no great span to thy stream, Yser,</p><p class="line">But the Styx were an impotent babble beside.</p><p class="line">Though thy ooze be slow as a midnight mere,</p><p class="line">There's the ebbing of life in its ghastly tide.</p><p class="line">Thou art consecrate</p><p class="line">To a proud foe's fate,</p><p class="line">Who peered in the ink of thy magic, and died.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">When the Judgment sounds on thy life, Yser,</p><p class="line">And thou liest prone in thy penitency,</p><p class="line">The God who girt Eden with rivers fair,</p><p class="line">And set on our walls that old watchman, the sea --</p><p class="line">He shall not forget, When the thrones are set,</p><p class="line">How thou gavest thy soul to the stand of the free.</p></div><p class="byline">PHILIP BYARD CLAYTON.<br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/></p></body></html> · Great War