Classic Poem

The Statue of Strassburg is flooded with light,
The people of Strassburg are joy-mad to-night;
The belfries, vibrating like ships on the sea,
Peal back through the Ages that Strassburg is free!

Three hundred brave thousands rejoicing to tears,
Their firm faith unshaken in forty dark years!
Look back through five hundred, like haze on the sea,
And Strassburg was powerful and Strassburg was free!

The fame of her marshals was known to the world;
The armies of Greed from her grey walls she hurled,
She sang to the Nations, for your sake and mine,
The Song of the Army that watched on the Rhine.

Her belfries are rocking that pealed to the Gauls:
“In peace or in danger, keep ward on the walls!”
For Crown and Republic—Republic or Crown—
O Strassburg held out after Paris went down!

Her belfries are silent, her people asleep;
Her poets are dreaming of rampart and keep;
On dream-scapes of walls that were long swept away,
The shades of her burghers keep watch till the day!