IT is a country, Says this old guide-book to the Netherlands, -- Written when Waterloo was hardly over, And justified "a warmer interest In English travellers" -- Flanders is a country Which, boasting not "so many natural beauties" As others, yet has history enough. I like the book; it flaunts the polished phrase Which our forefathers practised equally To bury admirals or sell beaver hats; Let me go on, and note you here and there Words with a difference to the likes of us. The author "will not dwell on the temptations Which many parts of Belgium offer"; he "Will not insist on the salubrity Of the air." I thank you, sir, for those few words. With which we find ourselves in sympathy. And here are others: "here the unrivalled skill Of British generals, and the British soldier's Unconquerable valour..." no, not us. Proceed. "The necessary cautions on the road"... Gas helmets at the alert, no daylight movement? "But lately much attention has been paid To the coal mines." Amen, roars many a fosse Down south, and slag-heap unto slag-heap calls. "The Flemish farmers are likewise distinguished For their attention to manure." Perchance. First make your mixen, then about it raise Your tenements; let the house and sheds and sties And arch triumphal opening on the mud Inclose that Mecca in a square. The fields, Our witness saith, are for the most part small, And "leases are unfortunately short." In this again perceive veracity; At Zillebeke the cultivator found That it was so; and Fritz, who thought to settle Down by Verbrandenmolen, came with spades, And dropped his spades, and ran more dead than alive. Nor, to disclose a secret, do I languish For lack of a long lease on Pilkem Ridge. While in these local hints, I cannot wait But track the author on familiar ground. He comes from Menin, names the village names That since rang round the world, leaves Zillebeke, Crosses a river (so he calls that blood-leat Bassevillebeek), a hill (a hideous hill), And reaches Ypres, "pleasant, well-built town." My Belgian Traveller, did no threatening whisper Sigh to you from the hid profound of fate Ere you passed thence, and noted "Poperinghe. Traffic in serge and hops"? (The words might still Convey sound fact. Perhaps some dim hush envoy Entered your spirit when at Furnes you wrote, "The air is reckoned unhealthy here for strangers." I find your pen, as driven by irony's fingers, Defend the incorrectness of your map With this: it was not fitting to delay, Though "in a few weeks a new treaty of Paris Would render it useless." Good calm worthy man, I leave you changing horses, and I wish you Good @3blanc@1 at Nieuport. -- Truth did not disdain This sometime seer, crass but Cassandra-like. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AN ODE ON THE UNVEILING OF THE SHAW MEMORIA BOSTON COMMON, MAY 31, 1897 by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH AN HYMN TO THE EVENING by PHILLIS WHEATLEY AS I SIT WRITING HERE by WALT WHITMAN PHILOCTETES: PHILOCTETES CALLS FOR DEATH by AESCHYLUS RAISING THE DEVIL; A LEGEND OF CORNELIUS AGRIPPA by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM |