<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">They Held Their Ground</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Grey</span> broke the light of that Sabbath dawn</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">On the English pickets,</p><p class="line">Gold rose the sun o'er the unreaped corn</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And the Hainault thickets.</p><p class="line">Through the park at home, where the young rooks caw'd,</p><p class="line">And the dew lay deep on the churchyard sward,</p><p class="line">Went Mary, arisen to meet her Lord --</p><p class="line">While Mons must be held for England.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Clear broke the day as the bugles blew, --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Who shall hear them to-morrow?</p><p class="line">Sternly the thunder of Edom grew,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And the tally of sorrow.</p><p class="line">Right wing, left wing, centre attacked,</p><p class="line">Legions launched like a cataract,</p><p class="line">But the English stood to their plighted pact, --</p><p class="line">Yes, Mons must be held for England!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Pitiless noon, when the screaming shard</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Left the air acrid.</p><p class="line">But they looked on Malplaquet and Oudenarde,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">So the soil was sacred.</p><p class="line">And they thought (who knows?) on some Surrey lane,</p><p class="line">On some mother's kiss, or some school refrain,</p><p class="line">And they tightened the girths of their saddles again,</p><p class="line">Since Mons must be held for England.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Red set the sun in the angry skies</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Ere the fight was over.</p><p class="line">Fierce were the beams of the cruisers' eyes</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">By the cliffs of Dover.</p><p class="line">News -- ill news -- for Namur is lost!</p><p class="line">No need for the Eagle to count the cost.</p><p class="line">But Mons was the merest hill at the most,</p><p class="line">Yet Mons had been held for England.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Lord, Who hast known what a slain Son is,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Judge Thou their labor!</p><p class="line">Lifted they eyes to the vanities?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Deceived their neighbor?</p><p class="line">Sift Thou the souls that are utterly Thine,</p><p class="line">Clean are those cold hands of covert design;</p><p class="line">Silent they lie in their last long line,</p><p class="line">Who died to hold Mons for England!</p></div><p class="byline">-- Philip Byard Clayton.</p></body></html> · Great War