The Project Gutenberg EBook of Barbarians by Robert W. Chambers

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Title: Barbarians

Author: Robert W. Chambers

Release Date: May 27, 2008 [Ebook #25623]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARIANS***

[Illustration: Stent lost the fight, fell outward, wider, dropping back
into mid-air.]

BARBARIANS

By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

AUTHOR OF

"The Dark Star," "The Girl Philippa," "Who Goes There," Etc.

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With Frontispiece

By A. I. KELLER

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A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with D. APPLETON & COMPANY

TO
LYLE and MADELEINE MAHAN

I

"Daughter of Light, the bestial wrath
Of Barbary besets thy path!
The Hun is beating his painted drum;
His war horns blare! The Hun is come!"

"Father, I feel his foetid breath:
The thick air reeks with the stench of death;
My will is Thine. Thy will be done
On Turk and Bulgar, Czech and Hun!"

II

_She understands._
_Where the dead headland flare_
_Mocks sea and sand;_
_Where death-lights shed their glare_
_On No-Man's-Land._
_France takes her stand._
_Magnificently fair,_
_The Flaming Brand_
_Within her slender hand;_
_Christ's lilies in her hair._

III

"Daughter of Grief, thy House is sand!
Thy towers are falling athwart the land.
They've flayed the earth to its ribs of chalk
And over its bones the spectres stalk!"

"Father, I see my high spires reel;
My breast is scarred by the Hun's hoofed heel.
What was, shall be! I read Thy sign:
Thy ocean yawns for the smitten swine!"

IV

_Then, from Verdun_
_Pealed westward to the Somme_
_From every gun_
_God's summons: "Daughter! Come!"_
_Then the red sun_
_Stood still. Grew dumb_
_The universal hum_
_Of life, and numb_
_The lips of Life, undone_
_By Death.... And so--France won!_

V

"Daughter of God, the End is here!
The swine rush on: the sea is near!
My wild flowers bloom on the trenches' edge;
My little birds sing by shore and sedge