I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar <br />From rail-track and from highway, and I heard <br />In field and farmstead many an ancient word <br />Of local lineage like 'Thu bist,' 'Er war,' <br /> <br />'Ich woll,' 'Er sholl,' and by-talk similar, <br />Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird <br />At England's very loins, thereunto spurred <br />By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are. <br /> <br />Then seemed a Heart crying: 'Whosoever they be <br />At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame <br />Between folk kin tongued even as are we, <br /> <br />'Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame; <br />May their familiars grow to shun their name, <br />And their brood perish everlastingly.'<br /><br />Robert Laurence Binyon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-pity-of-it-5/
