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On The Belgian Expatriation

Topics: classic

I dreamt that people from the Land of Chimes     Arrived one autumn morning with their bells,     To hoist them on the towers and citadels     Of my own country, that the musical rhymes     Rung by them into space at meted times     Amid the market's daily stir and stress,     And the night's empty star-lit silentness,     Might solace souls of this and kindred climes.     Then I awoke; and lo, before me stood     The visioned ones, but pale and full of fear;     From Bruges they came, and Antwerp, and Ostend,     No carillons in their train. Foes of mad mood     Had shattered these to shards amid the gear     Of ravaged roof, and smouldering gable-end.     October 18, 1914.

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"I dreamt that people from the Land of Chimes..."

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