Their hearts were burning in their breasts <br />Too hot for curse or cries. <br />They stared upon the towers that burned <br />Before their smarting eyes. <br /> <br />There where, since France began to be, <br />Anointed kings knelt down, <br />There where the Maid, the unafraid, <br />Received her vision's crown, <br /> <br />The senseless shell with nightmare scream <br />Burst, and fair fragments fell <br />Torn from their centuries of peace <br />As by the rage of hell. <br /> <br />What help for wrath, what use for wail? <br />Before a dumb despair <br />All ancient, high, heroic France <br />Seemed burning, bleeding there. <br /> <br />Within, the pillars soar to gloom <br />Lit by the glimmering Rose; <br />Spirits of beauty shrined in stone <br />Afar from mortal woes, <br /> <br />Hearing not, though their haunted shade <br />Is stricken, and all around <br />With splintering flash and brutal crash <br />The ghostly aisles resound. <br /> <br />And there, upon the pavement stretched, <br />The German wounded groan <br />To see the dropping flames of death <br />And feel the shells their own. <br /> <br />Too fierce the fire! Helped by their foes <br />They stagger out to air. <br />The green--grey coats are seen, are known <br />Through all the crowded square. <br /> <br />Ah, now for vengeance! Deep the groan: <br />A death--knell! Quietly <br />Soldiers unsling their rifles, lift <br />And aim with steady eye. <br /> <br />But sudden in the hush between <br />Death and the doomed, there stands <br />Against those levelled guns a priest, <br />Gentle, with outstretched hands. <br /> <br />Be not as guilty as they! he cries ... <br />Each lets his weapon fall, <br />As if a vision showed him France <br />And vengeance vain and small.<br /><br />Robert Laurence Binyon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/at-rheims/
