Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE VIRGIN OF ALBERT (NOTRE DAME DE BREBIERES), by GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE VIRGIN OF ALBERT (NOTRE DAME DE BREBIERES), by                    
First Line: Shyly expectant, gazing up at her
Last Line: "and comfort them, and hearken all their prayers!"
Subject(s): Notre Dame De Brebieres (basilica); Prayer; World War I; First World War


SHYLY expectant, gazing up at Her,
They linger, Gaul and Briton, side by side:
Death they know well, for daily have they died,
Spending their boyhood ever bravelier;
They wait: here is no priest or chorister,
Birds skirt the stricken tower, terrified;
Desolate, empty, is the Eastertide,
Yet still they wait, watching the Babe and Her.

Broken, the Mother stoops: the brutish foe
Hurled with dull hate his bolts, and down She swayed,
Down, till She saw the toiling swarms below,—
Platoons, guns, transports, endlessly arrayed:
"Women are woe for them! let Me be theirs,
And comfort them, and hearken all their prayers!"





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