Poem by Hilaire Belloc

September

I, from a window where the Meuse is wide,
Looked eastward out to the September night;
The men that in the hopeless battle died
Rose, and deployed, and stationed for the fight;
A brumal army, vague and ordered large
For mile on mile by some pale general,-
I saw them lean by companies to the charge,
But no man living heard the bugle-call.

And fading still, and pointing to their scars,
They fled in lessening clouds, where gray and high
Dawn lay along the heaven in misty bars;
But watching from that eastern casement, I
Saw the Republic splendid in the sky,
And round her terrible head the morning stars.

1. To the Balliol Men Still in Africa
2. The Rebel
3. Sarah Byng, Who Could Not Read and Was Tossed into a Thorny Hedge by a Bull
4. Stanzas Written on Battersea Bridge during a South-Westerly Gale
5. Our Lord and Our Lady

Madison Cawein September ("The bubbled blue of morning-glory spires")

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