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| MY name is Darino, the poet. You have heard? Oui, Comédie Française. | |
| Perchance it has happened, mon ami, you know of my unworthy lays. | |
| Ah, then you must guess how my fingers are itching to talk to a pen; | |
| For I was at Soissons, and saw it, the death of the twelve Englishmen. | |
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| My leg, malheureusement, I left it behind on the banks of the Aisne. | 5 |
| Regret? I would pay with the other to witness their valor again. | |
| A trifle, indeed, I assure you, to give for the honor to tell | |
| How that handful of British, undaunted, went into the Gateway of Hell. | |
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| Let me draw you a plan of the battle. Here we French and your Engineers stood; | |
| Over there a detachment of German sharpshooters lay hid in a wood. | 10 |
| A mitrailleuse battery planted on top of this well-chosen ridge | |
| Held the road for the Prussians and covered the direct approach to the bridge. | |
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| It was madness to dare the dense murder that spewed from those ghastly machines. | |
| (Only those who have danced to its music can know what the mitrailleuse means.) | |
| But the bridge on the Aisne was a menace; our safety demanded its fall: | 15 |
| “Engineers,—volunteers!” In a body, the Royals stood out at the call. | |
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| Death at best was the fate of that mission—to their glory not one was dismayed. | |
| A party was chosen—and seven survived till the powder was laid. | |
| And they died with their fuses unlighted. Another detachment! Again | |
| A sortie is made—all too vainly. The bridge still commanded the Aisne. | 20 |
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| We were fighting two foes—Time and Prussia—the moments were worth more than troops. | |
| We must blow up the bridge. A lone soldier darts out from the Royals and swoops | |
| For the fuse! Fate seems with us. We cheer him; he answers—our hopes are reborn! | |
| A ball rips his visor—his khaki shows red where another has torn. | |
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| Will he live—will he last—will he make it? Hélas! And so near to the goal! | 25 |
| A second, he dies! then a third one! A fourth! Still the Germans take toll! | |
| A fifth, magnifique! It is magic! How does he escape them? He may … | |
| Yes, he does! See, the match flares! A rifle rings out from the wood and says “Nay!” | |
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| Six, seven, eight, nine take their places, six, seven, eight, nine brave their hail; | |
| Six, seven, eight, nine—how we count them! But the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth fail! | 30 |
| A tenth! Sacré nom! But these English are soldiers—they know how to try; | |
| (He fumbles the place where his jaw was)—they show, too, how heroes can die. | |
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| Ten we count—ten who ventured unquailing—ten there were—and ten are no more! | |
| Yet another salutes and superbly essays where the ten failed before. | |
| God of Battles, look down and protect him! Lord, his heart is as Thine—let him live! | 35 |
| But the mitrailleuse splutters and stutters, and riddles him into a sieve. | |
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| Then I thought of my sins, and sat waiting the charge that we could not withstand. | |
| And I thought of my beautiful Paris, and gave a last look at the land, | |
| At France, my belle France, in her glory of blue sky and green field and wood. | |
| Death with honor, but never surrender. And to die with such men—it was good. | 40 |
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| They an forming—the bugles are blaring—they will cross in a moment and then … | |
| When out of the line of the Royals (your island, mon ami, breeds men) | |
| Burst a private, a tawny-haired giant—it was hopeless, but, ciel! how he ran! | |
| Bon Dieu please remember the pattern, and make many more on his plan! | |
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| No cheers from our ranks, and the Germans, they halted in wonderment too; | 45 |
| See, he reaches the bridge; ah! he lights it! I am dreaming, it cannot be true. | |
| Screams of rage! Fusillade! They have killed him! Too late though, the good work is done. | |
| By the valor of twelve English martyrs, the Hell-Gate of Soissons is won! | |
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