France

Because for once the sword broke in her hand, The words she spoke seemed perished for a space; All wrong was brazen, and in every land The tyrants walked abroad with naked face; The waters turned to blood, as rose the Star Of evil Fate denying all release. The rulers smote, the feeble crying "War!" The usurers robbed, the naked crying "Peace!" And her own feet were caught in nets of gold, And her own soul profaned by sects that squirm, And little men climbed her high seats and sold Her honour to the vulture and the worm. And she seemed broken and they thought her dead, The Overmen, so brave against the weak. Has your last word of sophistry been said, O cult of slaves? Then it is hers to speak. Clear the slow mists from her half-darkened eyes, As slow mists parted over Valmy fell, As once again her hands in high surprise Take hold upon the battlements of Hell.

Cecil Chesterton

Give us a name to fill the mind With the shining thoughts that lead mankind, The glory of learning, the joy of art, -- A name that tells of a splendid part In the long, long toil and the strenuous fight Of the human race to win its way From the feudal darkness into the day Of Freedom, Brotherhood, Equal Right, -- A name like a star, a name of light. I give you France! Give us a name to move the heart With a warmer glow and a swifter flood, -- A name like the sound of a trumpet, clear, And silver-sweet, and iron-strong, That calls three million men to their feet, Ready to march, and steady to meet The foes who threaten that name with wrong, -- A name that rings like a battle-song. I give you France! Give us a name to move the heart With the strength that noble griefs impart, A name that speaks of the blood outpoured To save minkind from the sway of the sword, -- A name that calls on the world to share In the burden of sacrificial strife Where the cause at stake is the world's free life Andthe rule of the people everywhere, -- A name like a vow, a name like a prayer. I give you France!

Henry van Dyke

Franceline rose in the dawning gray, And her heart would dance though she knelt to pray, For her man Michel had holiday, Fighting for France. She offered her prayer by the cradle-side, And with baby palms folded in hers she cried: "If I have but one prayer, dear, crucified Christ -- save France! "But if I have two, then, by Mary's grace, Carry me safe to the meeting-place, Let me look once again on my dear love's face, Save him for France!" She crooned to her boy: "Oh, how glad he'll be, Little three-months old, to set eyes on thee! For, 'Rather than gold, would I give,' wrote he, 'A son to France.' "Come, now, be good, little stray sauterelle, For we're going by-by to thy papa Michel, But I'll not say where for fear thou wilt tell, Little pigeon of France! "Six days' leave and a year between! But what would you have? In six days clean, Heaven was made," said Franceline, "Heaven and France." She came to the town of the nameless name, To the marching troops in the street she came, And she held high her boy like a taper flame Burning for France. Fresh from the trenches and gray with grime, Silent they march like a pantomime; "But what need of music? My heart beats time -- Vive la France!" His regiment comes. Oh, then where is he? "There is dust in my eyes, for I cannot see, -- Is that my Michel to the right of thee, Soldier of France? Then out of the ranks a comrade fell, -- "Yesterday -- 't was a splinter of shell -- And he whispered thy name, did thy poor Michel, Dying for France." The tread of the troops on the pavement throbbed Like a woman's heart of its last joy robbed, As she lifted her boy to the flag, and sobbed: Vive la France!"

Charlotte Holmes Crawford

She came not into the Presence as a martyred saint might come, Crowned white-robed and adoring, with very reverence dumb, -- She stood as a straight young soldier, confident, gallant, strong, Who asks a boon of his captain in the sudden hush of the drum. She said: "Now have I stayed too long in this my place of bliss, With these glad dead that, comforted, forget what sorrow is Upon that world whose stony stairs they climbed to come to this. "But lo, a cry hath torn the peace wherein so long I stayed, Like a trumpet's call at Heaven's wall from a herald unafraid, -- A million voices in one cry, 'Where is the Maid, the Maid?' "I had forgot from too much joy that olden task of mine, But I have heard a certain word shatter the chant divine, Have watched a banner glow and grow before mine eyes for sign. "I would return to that my land flung in the teeth of war, I would cast down my robe and crown that pleasure me no more, And don the armor that I knew, the valiant sword I bore. "And angels militant shall fling the gates of Heaven wide, And souls new-dead whose lives were shed like leaves on war's red tide Shall cross their swords above our heads and cheer us as we ride. "For with me goes that soldier saint, Saint Michael of the sword, And I shall ride on his right side, a page beside his lord, And men shall follow like swift blades to reap a sure reward. "Grant that I answer this my call, yea, though the end may be The naked shame, the biting flame, the last, long agony; I would go singing down that road where fagots wait for me. Mine be the fire about my feet, the smoke about my head; So might I glow, a torch to show the path my heroes tread; My Captain! Oh, my Captain, let me go back!" she said.

Theodosia Garrison

You have become a forge of snow-white fire, A crucible of molten steel, O France! Your sons are stars who cluster to a dawn And fade in light for you, O glorious France! They pass through meteor chnges with a song Which to all islands and all continents Says life is neither comfort, wealth, nor fame, Nor quiet hearthstones, friendship, wife nor child, Nor love, nor youth's delight, nor manhood's power, Nor many days spent in a chosen work, Nor honored merit, nor the patterned theme Of daily labor, nor the crowns nor wreaths Of seventy years.                  These are not all of life, O France, whose sons amid the rolling thunder Of cannon stand in trenches where the dead Clog the ensanguined ice. But life to these Prophetic and enraptured souls in vision, And the keen ecstasy of faded strife, And divination of the loss as gain, And reading mysteries with brightened eyes In fiery shock and dazzling pain before The orient splendour of the face of Death, As a great light beside a shadowy sea; And in a high will's strenuous exercise, Where the warmed spirit finds its fullest strength And is no more afraid, and in the stroke Of azure lightning when the hidden essence And shifting meaning of man's spiritual worth And mystical significance in time Are instantly distilled to one clear drop Which mirrors earth and heaven.                        This is life Flaming to heaven in a minute's span When the breath of battle blows the smouldering spark. And across these seas We who cry Peace and treasure life and cling To cities, happiness, or daily toil For daily bread, or trail the long routine Of seventy years, taste not the terrible wine Whereof you drink, who drain and toss the cup Empty and ringing by the finished feast; Or have it shaken from your hand by sight Of God against the olive woods. As Joan of Arc amid the apple trees With sacred joy first heard the voices, then Obeying plunged at Orleans in a field Of spears and lived her dream and died in fire, Thou, France, hast heard the voices and hast lived The dream and known the meaning of the dream, And read its riddle: how the soul of man May to one greatest purpose make itself A lens of clearness, how it loves the cup Of deepest truth, and how its bitterest gall Turns sweet to soul's surrender.                        And you say: Take days for repitition, stretch your hands For mocked renewal of familiar things: The beaten path, the chair beside the window, The crowded street, the task, the accustomed sleep, And waking to the task, or many springs Of lifted cloud, blue water, flowering fields -- The prison-house grows close no less, the feast A place of memory sick for senses dulled Down to the dusty end where pitiful Time Grown weary cries Enough!

Edgar Lee Masters

Those who have stood for thy cause when the dark was around thee, Those who have pierced through the shadows and shining have found thee, Those who have held to their faith in thy courage and power, Thy spirit, thy honor, thy strength for a terrible hour, Now can rejoice that they see thee in light and in glory, Facing whatever may come as an end to the story In calm undespairing, with steady eyes fixed on the morrow -- The morn that is pregnant with blood and with death and with sorrow. And whether the victory crowns thee, O France the eternal, Or whether the smoke and the dusk of a nightfall infernal Gather about thee, and us, and the foe; and all treasures Run with the flooding of war into bottomless measures -- Fall what befalls: in this hour all those who are near thee And all who have loved thee, they rise and salute and revere thee!

Herbert Jones

Near where the royal vicitims fell In days gone by, caught in the swell Of a ruthless tide Of human passion, deep and wide: There where we two A Nations's later sorrow knew -- To-day, O friend! I stood Amid a self-ruled multitude That by nor sound nor word Betrayed how mightily its heart was stirred. A memory Time never could efface -- A memory of Grief -- Like a great Silence brooded o'er the place; And men breathed hard, as seeking for relief From an emotion strong That would not cry, though held in check too long. One felt that joy drew near -- A joy intense that seemed itself to fear -- Brightening in eyes that had been dull, As all with feeling gazed Upon the Strasbourg figure, raised Above us -- mourning, beautiful! Then one stood at the statue's base, and spoke -- Men needed not to ask what word; Each in his breast the message heard, Writ for him by Despair, That evermore in moving phrase Breathes from the Invalides and Père Lachaise -- Vainly it seemed, alas! But now, France looking on the image there, Hope gave her back the lost Alsace. A deeper hush fell on the crowd: A sound -- the lightest -- seemed too loud (Would, friend, you had been there!) As to that form the speaker rose, Took from her, fold on fold, The mournful crape, gray-worn and old, Her, proudly, to discolose, And with the touch of tender care That fond emotion speaks, 'Mid tears that none could quite command, Placed the Tricolor in her hand, And kissed her on both cheeks!

Florence Earle Coates

What is the gift we have given thee, Sister? What is the trust we have laid in thy hand? Hearts of our bravest, our best, and our dearest, Blood of our blood we have sown in thy land. What for all time will the harvest be, Sister? What will spring up from the seed that is sown? Freedom and peace and goodwill among Nations, Love that will bind us with love all our own. Bright is the path that is opening before us, Upward and onward it mounts through the night; Sword shall not sever the bonds that unite us Leading the world to the fullness of light. Sorrow hath made thee more beautiful, Sister, Nobler and purer than ever before; We who are chastened by sorrow and anguish Hail thee as sister and queen evermore.

Frederick George Scott

Qui vive? Who passes by up there? Who moves -- what stirs in the startled air? What whispers, thrills, exults up there? Qui vive? "The Flags of France." What wind on a windless night is this, That breathes as light as a lover's kiss, That blows through the night with bugle notes, That streams like a pennant from a lance, That rustles, that floats? "The Flags of France." What richly moves, what lightly stirs, Like a noble lady in a dance, When all men's eyes are in love with hers And needs must follow? "The Flags of France." What calls to the heart -- and the heart has heard, Speaks, and the soul has obeyed the word, Summons, and all the years advance, And the world goes forward with France -- with France? "The Flags of France." What flies -- a glory, through the night, While the legions stream -- a line of light, And men fall to the left and fall to the right, But they fall not? "The Flags of France." Qui vive? Who comes? What approaches there? What soundless tumult, what breath in the air Takes the breath in the throat, the blood from the heart? In a flame of dark, to the unheard beat Of an unseen drum and fleshless feet, They approach -- they come. Who comes? (Hush! Hark!) "Qui vive?" "The Flags of France." Uncover the head and kneel -- kneel down, A monarch passes, without a crown, Let the proud tears fall but the heart beat high: The Greatest of All is passing by, On its endless march in the endless Plan: "Qui vive?" "The Spirit of Man." "O Spirit of Man, pass on! Advance!" And they who lead, who hold the van? Kneel down! The Flags of France.

Grace Ellery Channing Paris, 1917

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