"HOW LIEGE HELD THE ROAD."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11215, 22 October 1914, Page 10

"HOW LIEGE HELD THE ROAD."

We were pounding at our anvils when they pounded at our gate, " Open," cried the German squadrons, •" let us pass, or meet your fate. "We are millions; dare defy us and Liege is but a name." But we chose to die undaunted, than to buy our lives in shame, So we banked our eager ures and we laid aside the sledge, Reckinf only that our sires had endowed us with the pledge To maintain an ally's honour, to uphold the Belgian code. And we answered with our cannon, " That Liege would hold the road.'' We who faced the Roman legions, when ' the Prussian was unborn, Met the insult of the raider with a message of steel scorn. Dared he think, this upstart Caesar, that the Belgae would be cowed, Where the Roman Caspar found us, standing fearlessly and proud? And we did not wait for England, and we did not wait for France, But alone we gave him battle, and alone blocked his advance; And the flag that fluttered boldly over town and fortress showed To the world that God was with us and Liege still held the road.

Fifty times the hungry uhlans ate our load and asked for more, Fifty times the Belgian dragoons charged and cut them to the core; And they perished by the thousand, but an ever-swelling flood Day by day poured through the border, sworn'to drench in Liege blood, And our wives looked at their babies, but our women did not quail. "Serve the Fatherland; 'twere better that we perish than you fail, Rather than we breed to cowards, we will bear the widow's load, For the glormy of our chillren, fight! Liege must still hold the road."

When the last sword is ploughshare, and the last war-trampled plain Has been furrowed and its scars are hid beneath a rug of grain; When the nation's hates are sated, and the ancient feuds have died, When the Mongols' lust is vanished. and the gun is laid aside; When the last despot's ambition is the memory of the grave; When we know not Czar or Emperor, and we know not serf nor slave, Men will tell the deathless story of the Belgians' splendid code, When for God, and King and Glory, " At Liege we held the Road." —Herbert Kaufman.