Ballad of the Germans.

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 815, 11 February 1916, Page 22

Ballad of the Germans.

In Hospital, Flanders, the writer saw a little peasant girl dying from the bayonet wounds in her back which the German soldiers had given her. Cain slew only a brother, A Jad who was fair and strong, His murder was careless and honest. A heated and sudden wrong. And. Judas was kindly and pleasant, For he snared an invincible man. But you—you have spitted the children, As, they toddled and stumbled and >' ran. She heard you sing on the high road, She thought you were gallant x and gay; Such men as the peasants of Flanders: The friends of a child at play. She saw the sun on your helmets, The sparkle of glancing light. She saw your bayonets flashing, - And she laughed at your Prussian might. Then you gave her death for her laughter, As you looked on her mischievous face. You hated -the tiny peasant, With the hate of your famous race. You were not frenzied and angry; You were'cold and efficient and keen. Your thrust was as thorough and deadly As the stroke of a faithful machine. You stabbed her deep with your rifle: You had good reason to sing, As you footed it on through Flanders Past the broken and quivering thing. Something impedes your advancing, . A dragging has -come on your _host 3. And Paris grows dim now,, and dimmer, Through the blur of your raucous boasts. Your singing is sometimes broken By guttural German groans. Your , ankles are wet with her bleeding, Yotir pike is blunt from her bones. •Hie little peasant has tripped jou. , She hangs to your bloody stride. And the dimpled hands are fastened "Where they fumbled before she died. —-Arthur H. Gleason, in New York "Herald."