Poem from a Picture



(Children at play on a French Battlefield)
'When I was a child,'
You shall tell one day,
Children, on these blackened fields
Gallantly at play,
'All the quiet sky
Burst in death aflame;
One day, I was young,
Then . . . The Horror came.'
'When I was a child . . .'
Wind-tossed leaves of war,
Is there childhood still for you,
Wise in horror-lore,
Who have heard your sisters' screams
Shattering your play,
Seen your mothers past their dead
Led to shame away?
Ragged, helpless, maimed,
Hungry, left alone
Where the smoking roof-beams lie
By the wrecked hearth-stone,
Still you mime (child-hearts are strong,
Childhood pain is brief)
Echoes of world-victory,
World-defeat, world-grief!
Dauntless in your rags,
Insolent in mirth,
Laughing with young lips that know
All the griefs of earth,
God, who loves a high heart well,
Will not let you fail–
You are France, who laughs at Hell–
France, who shall prevail!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

45 sec read
60

Quick analysis:

Scheme aBcdcefgfBhihjckclmemnopoqrsrtutu
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 888
Words 155
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 33

Margaret Widdemer

Margaret Widdemer was a U.S. poet and novelist. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1919 for her collection The Old Road to Paradise, shared with Carl Sandburg for Cornhuskers. more…

All Margaret Widdemer poems | Margaret Widdemer Books

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    "Poem from a Picture" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 Oct. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/43275/poem-from-a-picture>.

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