>^ 
 
 ^^-n^ 
 
 

 °-^ "' f° V 
 
 * POvOw 
 
 
 .^^ 
 
 
 
 >?Xi 
 
 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 BY 
 
 RAYMOND WEEKS 
 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 AMERICAN BRANCH: 85 West 32wd Strbbt 
 
 LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE, AND BOMBAY 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 1917 
 

 Copyright, 1917 
 
 BY 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 American Branch 
 
 4o 
 
 5^ 
 
 '4i9!7 
 
The verses here published were written 
 in France during the tragic months of 
 August and September, 1914, and were 
 then laid aside for a year, in the hope 
 that the author might be able to improve 
 them if he approached them somewhat as 
 a stranger. They were several times re- 
 vised at still later periods, a number of 
 lines were omitted and a few added. The 
 author owes a great debt of gratitude for 
 invaluable criticisms and suggestions made 
 by friends, among whom he desires to 
 thank especially Mr. William T. Brewster, 
 Mr. Francis Daniels, Miss Helen Harvitt, 
 Miss Maud E. Temple and Mr. William 
 P. Trent. 
 
 New Yohk, 
 November 1916. 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 nn HE snow may melt and ice remain, 
 ^ The sleet may pass and leave the rain. 
 The tempest cease, yet long shall thunder 
 The sullen waves upon their crags. 
 The sun at evening may go under, 
 Yet leave upon the sky and plain 
 The crimson glory of his flags, 
 And old things still remain. 
 
 (1) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 To thee, sweet France, we eager turn, 
 Land where the deeds of old still burn, 
 Land where the soul's supreme emotion 
 In glorious action is exprest. 
 Land where the patriot's deep devotion 
 Includes a love for all who yearn 
 To see their country's wrongs redrest. 
 To thee, sweet France, we turn I 
 
 (2) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 What nations grander heroes know 
 Than thine who fell at Roncevaux? 
 Impetuous Roland dared his fate, 
 Nor wound his horn until too late. 
 Then through the Pyrenean fog 
 The wild horn spoke its monologue, 
 While mist-hung mountains heard astounded 
 The saddest message ever sounded. 
 It ceast, and then began again 
 Its weird lament for dying men. 
 " To horse! to horse! " cried Charlemagne 
 Before the sti rtled bivouac, 
 And through the pass, with loosened rein, 
 His white beard flowing in his train, 
 (3) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 He led the furious army back: 
 They found young Roland's body lying 
 Face to the Spanish plain, where paynim 
 hosts were flying! 
 
 (4) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 What heroes ever equalled thine 
 
 Who left their bones in Palestine, 
 
 Or sank beneath the Middle- Sea, 
 
 Clad in their arms of fleur-de-lis? 
 
 Where maddest waves have ceast their 
 
 talking, 
 Under the ocean's endless rocking, 
 They sleeping dream, when shadows ply, 
 That fleets from France are sailing by. 
 Godfreys and Baldwins, Lusignans, 
 Sail on in quest of Saracens; 
 Among the orient hills and valleys 
 Shall they avenge the dead beside the 
 
 sunken galleys! 
 
 (5) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Forever glorious shall remain 
 
 The image of the good Lorraine, — 
 
 That Jeanne through whom the people 
 
 stood 
 One in her own white hardihood. 
 
 When she was sold 
 
 For foreign gold, 
 When pitiless English lances gleamed. 
 
 When prayers were said, when rang her 
 knell. 
 The burning of her body seemed 
 
 The burning of her soul as well. 
 Her ashes to the river cast. 
 The country's foes could sleep at last ; 
 (6) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Glad bells were rung and masses said: 
 The Maid and Liberty were dead! 
 Of all the heroines of time 
 
 That came to comfort and to save, 
 The rarest one, the most sublime, 
 Has never had a grave. 
 Stars were not bright enough to light her, 
 Flowers were not sweet enough to dight 
 
 her, 
 Lips were not pure enough to name her, 
 Nor seraphim among their host to claim 
 
 her! 
 When from the fury of this hideous earth 
 
 (7) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 The poor child vanisht, none could un- 
 derstand 
 That from a doom like hers should come 
 new birth, 
 Yet this land is her land, 
 A gift exceeding fair. 
 
 We walk her fields, we see her sun, we 
 breathe her air! 
 
 (8) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 The startled nations call aloud: 
 
 "The Huns! the Huns!" 
 And in a dreadful occultation, 
 Europa through a midnight cloud 
 Drifts pale athwart the conflagration 
 
 Of blood-red suns. 
 Take courage, France! 'Tis not in vain 
 That ancient glories still remain! 
 
 Since times of old, 
 Thou art the adamantine wall 
 Where tides barbaric beat and fall, 
 And backward to their source are rolled. 
 
 (9) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 If France another nation were, 
 
 Prophetic bards would cry to her: 
 
 "Awaken from their sepulchre 
 
 Thy Roland and thine Oliver!" 
 
 But France's heroes are not dead! 
 
 Theirs is no asphodelian bed! 
 
 'No couch of dreams with poppies spread 
 
 Enslaves their noble limbs! 
 Clad in the soldier's red and blue, 
 Marching they sing the hymn of hymns, 
 
 The splendid Marseillaise, 
 That binds their present courage to 
 
 A thousand yesterdays! 
 
 (10) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 The trumpet's blare 
 Thrills through the air, 
 
 Adown the village street. 
 List to the hum 
 Of the resonant drum, 
 
 Hark to the tramping feet! 
 
 Hark to the fifer's fife, 
 
 That with its piercing breath. 
 Leads to triumph and death 
 
 The bands of glorious strife! 
 The houses tremble 
 Beneath the rumble 
 
 Of long artillery trains, 
 
 And the pageantried story 
 
 (11) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Of cavalrymen's glory- 
 Gleams in the window panes. 
 
 Because of thee, 
 
 O la belle patrie. 
 Our men and the Huns together 
 Fall in a red embrace among the autumn 
 heather. 
 
 (12) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Oh! let the virgins and their mothers scream, 
 The flaming village in the midnight gleam, 
 The bullets patter 'mong the Red Cross 
 
 nurses. 
 The tortured wounded die with groans and 
 
 curses ! 
 Let boys courageous, stood against a wall, 
 Before their shrieking sisters stagger, fall! 
 Let women and their children, driven on, 
 Protect the charging line of German 
 
 brawn. 
 And die the death of martyrdom sublime 
 To tell of German shame upon the page of 
 
 time! 
 
 (13) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Let such things be, 
 
 That sooner Liberty- 
 May rouse indignant millions to thine aid, 
 O noble France, who in a new crusade 
 Shall join their forces as of old to thee, 
 Thou patroness of justice and of right. 
 Adorer of the beautiful and true. 
 
 Defender of the few 
 Against the brutal many and their might! 
 
 (14) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Behind thine armies stand the spirits blest 
 
 Toiling at home — ^the old, the frail, the 
 young. 
 Who shall be laurel-crowned, and on their 
 breast 
 
 The sapphires of the gods be hung. 
 Count not as idleness their life austere 
 
 Of trailing griefs and sighs! 
 Count not as emptiness a single tear 
 
 From their heroic eyes! 
 The silent soldiers of that shadowy host 
 
 Contend in unseen battles, fall unwept, 
 Yet where applauding angels gather most 
 
 The record of their victory is kept. 
 (15) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Then fly away, fly away, letter! 
 
 Go bear in war your part. 
 No other messenger could better 
 Break a poor mother's heart. 
 Bear away, letter, to eyes that yearn 
 The name of the beloved who never shall 
 return! 
 
 (16) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Fly, needle, in the sombre cloth. 
 
 Through its meshes flashing ! 
 Ply, needle! Sew the solemn troth 
 
 Where her tears are plashing! 
 These threads for the baby hands, 
 
 These for the little feet. 
 These for his curly, golden strands, 
 
 These for his voice so sweet. 
 And these. Oh! these 
 Are for his eyes when he lay laughing on 
 
 her knees. 
 
 (17) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 A year from this September night, 
 
 There will be countries where as now 
 The women walk in robes of white. 
 
 With joy upon their brow. 
 But thine, O France, shall sable go 
 Amid the twilight afterglow. 
 Belated children, playing, screaming, 
 Shall cease their cries before the dreaming 
 Of eyes which at the distance stare. 
 And we shall reverent pass the mute de- 
 spair 
 Of black veils flowing, blowing, 
 Sowing, sowing 
 Sorrow in the balmy air. 
 (18) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Those stricken women do not speak. 
 They hear with pale and paler cheek 
 The mortal rain of lead that smote 
 A soldier in a faded coat, 
 And we would kiss the noble hem 
 Of the trailing, raven robe of theml 
 Heroic spirits in the isle 
 
 Of the haunting fields elysian, 
 And they who perish file on file 
 
 In the Valley of Decision 
 Shall worship your pathetic face, 
 O lonely daughters of the race. 
 
 Eyes of the shattered vision. 
 
 Lips of the broken smile 1 
 (19) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Let it not be in vain, O beauteous Death, 
 
 That men for justice died! 
 The valley of the shadow holdeth them. 
 And to the names we sob none answereth. 
 The roar of battle was their requiem. 
 The night is long; our tears alone abide. 
 Let it not be in vain, O beauteous Death! 
 
 (20) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Thy glorious dead, O France, have spread 
 their pinions 
 
 For flight no tongue can tell. 
 Toward the sublime, scarce-tenanted do- 
 minions 
 
 Where ancient heroes dwell, 
 But thou remainest still inviolate, 
 And, as the light of suns, immaculate. 
 Thou angel ministrant of peace. 
 Thou goddess-sister of dead Greece, 
 Majestic mother of the nations. 
 
 That listenest to their sobs. 
 While to their loftiest aspirations 
 
 Thy generous bosom throbs! 
 (21) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Thou singest to races in chains 
 Old songs with sweet refrains, 
 And to reminiscent tears 
 New songs of future years. 
 Imperious, thou stayest the hand of crime, 
 Intrepid, thou sayest "No!" to time. 
 Thou seest, beyond the storm that flies, 
 The glow of other suns, the calm of other 
 skies! 
 
 (22) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 Thou guidest with sure hand thy steadfast 
 bark 
 Where the impetuous waves of ocean roll, 
 And buildest on the bosom of the dark 
 
 A minaretted city for the soul. 
 Ay! we have turned unto the light supernal 
 That beams from high-impassioned mother 
 eyes, 
 And found, enclaspt within thine arms 
 eternal, 
 The refuge of the breast which sanctifies I 
 
 '(23) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 And now when foes beset thee, 
 Shall we, thy sons, forget thee? 
 
 Lo! we who swore thee 
 
 Our love, adore thee! 
 
 Our hosts surround thee, 
 
 Our swords imbound thee. 
 We serried march before thy bleeding feet, 
 And with unflinching hearts thy foes shall 
 
 meet. 
 Yea, we shall die! but thou shalt ever live. 
 Remembering us thy children, who could 
 give 
 
 To Liberty and thee 
 All that the soul may have or hope to be 
 (24) 
 
ODE TO FRANCE 
 
 This side of silence and the silken veil. 
 
 In ecstasy we cry, 
 
 Even as those who die : 
 "Hail, thou sweet France, our mother! haill 
 all hail!" 
 
 (25) 
 
33 W