That slays with the lightning’s breath.
For the sun of day turns fogged and gray,
And night is a reeling hell
When she swings the flail of the shrapnel’s hail,
Or looses the bursting shell.
From high Lorraine to the Somme and the Aisne,
She has held at bay the Hun,
That with broken strength he may pay, at length,
For the sins that his race has done;
For Alsace, torn from the mother land,