Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LADS OF LIEGE, by PERCY MACKAYE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LADS OF LIEGE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The lads of liege, beyond our eyes
Last Line: Fortissimi sunt belgæ!
Alternate Author Name(s): Mackaye, Percy Wallace
Subject(s): Caesar, Julius (100-44 B.c.); Courts & Courtiers; Liege, Battle Of (1914); War


THE lads of Liege, beyond our eyes
They lie where beauty's laurels be —
With lads of old Thermopylæ,
Who stayed the storming Persians.

The lads of Liege, on glory's field
They clasp the hands of Roland's men,
Who lonely faced the Saracen
Meeting the dark invasion.

The lads — the deathless lads of Liege,
They blazon through our living world
Their land — the little land that hurled
Olympian defiance.

"Now make us room, now let us pass;
Our monarch suffers no delay.
To stand in mighty Cæsar's way
Beseems not Lilliputians."

"We make no room; you shall not pass,
For freedom says your monarch nay!
And we have stood in Cæsar's way
Through freedom's generations.

"And here we stand till freedom fall
And Cæsar cry, ere we succumb,
Once more his horum omnium
Fortissimi sunt Belgæ."

The monarch roars an iron laugh
And cries on God to man his guns;
But Belgian mothers bore them sons
Who man the souls within them:

They bar his path, they hold their pass,
They blaze in glory of the Gaul
Till Cæsar cries again "Of all
The bravest are the Belgians!"

O lads of Liege, brave lads of Liege,
Your souls through glad Elysium
Go chanting: horum omnium
Fortissimi sunt Belgæ!





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