By BEATRICE M. BARRY.
French and Russian, they matter not,
For England only your wrath is hot;
But little Belgium is so small
You never mentioned her at all--
Or did her graveyards, yawning deep,
Whisper that silence was discreet?
For Belgium is waste! Ay, Belgium is waste!
She welters in the blood of her sons,
And the ruins that fill the little place
Speak of the vengeance of the Huns.
"Come, let us stand at the Judgment place,"
German and Belgian, face to face.
What can you say? What can you do?
What will history say of you?
For even the Hun can only say
That little Belgium lay in his way.
Is there no reckoning you must pay?
What of the Justice of that "Day"?
Belgium one voice--Belgium one cry
Shrieking her wrongs, inflicted by
_GERMANY!_
In her ruined homesteads, her trampled fields,
You have taken your toll, you have set your seal;
Her women are homeless, her men are dead,
Her children pitifully cry for bread;
Perchance they will drink with you--"To the Day!"
Let each man construe it as he may.
What shall it be?
They, too, have but one enemy;
Whose work is this?
Belgium has but one word to hiss--
_GERMANY!_
Take you the pick of your fighting men
Trained in all warlike arts, and then
Make of them all a human wedge
To break and shatter your sacred pledge;
You may fling your treaty lightly by,
But that "scrap of paper" will never die!
It will go down to posterity,
It will survive in eternity.
Truly you hate with a lasting hate;
Think you you will escape that hate?
"Hate by water and hate by land;
Hate of the head and hate of the hand."
Black and bitter and bad as sin,
Take you care lest it hem you in,
Lest the hate you boast of be yours alone,
And curses, like chickens, find roost at home
_IN GERMANY!_