Langemarck At Ypres Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCB DEBE FGHG IJKLJ MNON BAPA AQKQBQ KRSR TUVU WRXR PYAY ZA2AA2 BEA2E BEB2E C2XD2X BKE2KF2K BG2H2I2G2 B2J2EK2 L2EG2E M2B2N2B2 O2G2CG2 AABA P2Q2AAQ2 L2B2R2R2B2 ABCBThis is the ballad of Langemarck | A |
A story of glory and might | B |
Of the vast Hun horde and Canada s part | C |
In the great grim fight | B |
- | |
It was April fair on the Flanders Fields | D |
But the dreadest April then | E |
That ever the years in their fateful flight | B |
Had brought to this world of men | E |
- | |
North and east a monster wall | F |
The mighty Hun ranks lay | G |
With fort on fort and iron ringed trench | H |
Menacing grim and gray | G |
- | |
And south and west like a serpent of fire | I |
Serried the British lines | J |
And in between the dying and dead | K |
And the stench of blood and the trampled mud | L |
On the fair sweet Belgian vines | J |
- | |
And far to the eastward harnessed and taut | M |
Like a scimitar shining and keen | N |
Gleaming out of that ominous gloom | O |
Old France s hosts were seen | N |
- | |
When out of the grim Hun lines one night | B |
There rolled a sinister smoke | A |
A strange weird cloud like a pale green shroud | P |
And death lurked in its cloak | A |
- | |
On a fiend like wind it curled along | A |
Over the brave French ranks | Q |
Like a monster tree its vapours spread | K |
In hideous burning banks | Q |
Of poisonous fumes that scorched the night | B |
With their sulphurous demon danks | Q |
- | |
And men went mad with horror and fled | K |
From that terrible strangling death | R |
That seemed to sear both body and soul | S |
With its baleful flaming breath | R |
- | |
Till even the little dark men of the south | T |
Who feared neither God nor man | U |
Those fierce wild fighters of Afric s steppes | V |
Broke their battalions and ran | U |
- | |
Ran as they never had run before | W |
Gasping and fainting for breath | R |
For they knew t was no human foe that slew | X |
And that hideous smoke meant death | R |
- | |
Then red in the reek of that evil cloud | P |
The Hun swept over the plain | Y |
And the murderer s dirk did its monster work | A |
Mid the scythe like shrapnel rain | Y |
- | |
Till it seemed that at last the brute Hun hordes | Z |
Had broken that wall of steel | A2 |
And that soon through this breach in the freeman s dyke | A |
His trampling hosts would wheel | A2 |
- | |
And sweep to the south in ravaging might | B |
And Europe s peoples again | E |
Be trodden under the tyrant s heel | A2 |
Like herds in the Prussian pen | E |
- | |
But in that line on the British right | B |
There massed a corps amain | E |
Of men who hailed from a far west land | B2 |
Of mountain and forest and plain | E |
- | |
Men new to war and its dreadest deeds | C2 |
But noble and staunch and true | X |
Men of the open East and West | D2 |
Brew of old Britain s brew | X |
- | |
These were the men out there that night | B |
When Hell loomed close ahead | K |
Who saw that pitiful hideous rout | E2 |
And breathed those gases dread | K |
While some went under and some went mad | F2 |
But never a man there fled | K |
- | |
For the word was Canada theirs to fight | B |
And keep on fighting still | G2 |
Britain said fight and fight they would | H2 |
Though the Devil himself in sulphurous mood | I2 |
Came over that hideous hill | G2 |
- | |
Yea stubborn they stood that hero band | B2 |
Where no soul hoped to live | J2 |
For five gainst eighty thousand men | E |
Were hopeless odds to give | K2 |
- | |
Yea fought they on T was Friday eve | L2 |
When that demon gas drove down | E |
T was Saturday eve that saw them still | G2 |
Grimly holding their own | E |
- | |
Sunday Monday saw them yet | M2 |
A steadily lessening band | B2 |
With no surrender in their hearts | N2 |
But the dream of a far off land | B2 |
- | |
Where mother and sister and love would weep | O2 |
For the hushed heart lying still | G2 |
But never a thought but to do their part | C |
And work the Empire s will | G2 |
- | |
Ringed round hemmed in and back to back | A |
They fought there under the dark | A |
And won for Empire God and Right | B |
At grim red Langemarck | A |
- | |
Wonderful battles have shaken this world | P2 |
Since the Dawn God overthrew Dis | Q2 |
Wonderful struggles of right against wrong | A |
Sung in the rhymes of the world s great song | A |
But never a greater than this | Q2 |
- | |
Bannockburn Inkerman Balaclava | L2 |
Marathon s godlike stand | B2 |
But never a more heroic deed | R2 |
And never a greater warrior breed | R2 |
In any war man s land | B2 |
- | |
This is the ballad of Langemarck | A |
A story of glory and might | B |
Of the vast Hun horde and Canada s part | C |
In the great grim fight | B |
William Wilfred Campbell
(1)
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