Down by the village runs the stream
Once placid, now a raging flood:
Behold it, by the day's last gleam
Gorged with the dead and dyed with blood.
The Chapel bell has tolled its last;
The trees are bare, tho this be Spring:
Death's shroud is on the village cast,
And Ruin reigns o'er everything.
A grist of carnage clogs the Mill,
And shells have razed the quondam homes:
Fresh graves the trampled vineyards fill,
Whose cellars are but catacombs.
Beyond the village, Refugees
Stand, herded, cowed by fear and grief,
Or, _gassed_, implore on bended knees
For death, despairing of relief.
With bayonets and faces set
The Grenadiers, by L'Aiglon led,
Present a gruesome parapet,--
Thus, _still defending_, tho they're dead.