Not through the whole of the city,
Save for the spirit-fled body.
And over the breakage and rubble,
Furious wastage of warfare,
Rise in their piteous grandeur,
Oaks, still battling the tempest,
Riven and broken Cathedral,
Shattered, half-pinnacled Cloth-Hall,
Towers of solemn, grey greatness
Calling on heaven to witness,
Listening, steadfastly watchful,
For boom that will herald disaster
Down on their remnants of glory,
Asking the world appealing:
"What are we now but a name?"
City of wanton destruction,
Standing nakedly awful,
Token of agonized country,
When was an answer demanded
In so relentless a silence?
How can the asking be empty?
Name and naught else, in your ruins,
Crowned in the heart as an emblem,
Child of the ravenous booming,
Page of heroical story,
Greatest in still desolation,
Never in all your peace-slumber
Garnered you fame as in fury.
Silent mother of splendour,
Stand when your ruins have crumbled
And, sinking to soil of Flanders,
Merged with the valiant sleepers;
And after that and for always,
As long as the breath of men's honour
Is to the earth as the springtime,
Speak with your voices undying;—
How in the anguish and glory
Belgium and Britain you stood for,
