They wear clean cap and tunic,
As when they went to war;
A gleam comes where the medal's pinned:
But they will fight no more.
The shadows, maimed and antic,
Gesture and shape distort,
Like mockery of a demon dumb,
Out of the hell-din whence they come,
That dogs them for his sport:
But as if dead men were risen
And stood before me there
With a terrible fame about them blown
In beams of spectral air,
I see them, men transfigured
As in a dream, dilate
Fabulous with the Titan-throb
Of battling Europe's fate;
For history's hushed before them,
And legend flames afresh,—
Verdun, the name of thunder,
Is written on their flesh.
THREE hundred thousand men, but not enough
To break this township on a winding stream;
More yet must fall, and more, ere the red stuff
That built a nation's manhood may redeem
The Master's hopes and realize his dream.
They pave the way to Verdun; on their dust
The Hohenzollerns mount and, hand in hand,
Gaze haggard south; for yet another thrust
And higher hills must heap, ere they may stand
To feed their eyes upon the promised land.