<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Nations' David</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Erect</span> before Hell's hurricane, between the Germans and the sea,</p><p class="line">Belgium, still smiling through your pain; still, in the hour of ruin, free;</p><p class="line">While yet the cannon's note resounds along each poplar-bordered way,</p><p class="line">O, bleeding Belgium, to your wounds what mankind owes what man may say?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Long years, while battle came and went afar at Fate's malign caprice,</p><p class="line">Your kindly folk, serene, content, pursued the pleasant ways of peace.</p><p class="line">They promised, all the mighty ones: "In that calm land shall not be heard</p><p class="line">The thunder of our angry guns" -- Kaiser and King, they pledged their word.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And then, unwarning, arrogant, the cut-throat liar of Berlin</p><p class="line">Tore into shreds his covenant: his armèd hosts were swarming in</p><p class="line">From Prussian beer-halls, Rhinish hills, from Aurich east to Gumbinnen,</p><p class="line">From Rostock down to stolen Silz, sounded the tramp of Krupp-made men.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">This was your guardian brother's gift, the choice he gave his little ward:</p><p class="line">Betrayal of France (the course of thrift) or (Honor's course) the crimsoned sword.</p><p class="line">And you, the Nations' David, chose, while all the world stood trembling by;</p><p class="line">You called your sons, and they arose: "Come forth to die! Come forth to die!"</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Your weaver stopped his whirring loom; as Cæsar met him, even so now</p><p class="line">Your farmer hurried to his doom, and in its furrow left the plough;</p><p class="line">And Flanders, Hainault, Brabant came, Antwerp and Limburg -- all the land:</p><p class="line">The nameless and the proud of name, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Not for adventure, nor in pride: with naught to gain and all to lose --</p><p class="line">Their homes, their wives, their lives beside -- true sons of you, they, too, could choose.</p><p class="line">They came, with eyes that looked on death; not driven slaves, but conscious men:</p><p class="line">The Brugan burgher scant of breath, the lean-limbed hunter of Ardennes.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Their part it was to hold the gate, the narrow gate, against a foe</p><p class="line">Outnumbering scores to one -- to wait till Death alone should bid them go.</p><p class="line">And how they held it! Man and child; about Liège where Leman fed</p><p class="line">Blood-hungry Prussians blood and piled the meadows with heroic dead;</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">While village after village fell, cottage and church engulfed in smoke;</p><p class="line">While all the land became a Hell and served to turn a Teuton joke;</p><p class="line">While Belgian women prayed in vain for German mercy, trusting, fond;</p><p class="line">While German "Culture" burned Louvain, and German tenderness Termonde:</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">You did it, Little Belgium -- you! You stopped the dyke with half your sons;</p><p class="line">You did what no one else could do against the Vandals and the Huns!</p><p class="line">The eternal future in your debt from now until Man's latest day,</p><p class="line">How can the wondering world forget -- and how, remembering, repay?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">France, Britain, Russia: they have fought as fits the vast initiate;</p><p class="line">You, all unready, but unbought, till they were marshalled, held the gate.</p><p class="line">Above all clamour and applause, you stand, whatever else befall,</p><p class="line">God's David in Mankind's high cause: Belgium, the bravest of them all!</p></div><p class="byline">-- Reginald Wright Kauffman.</p></body></html> · Great War