Matt sent me:
“… a poem by
a lass named Beatrice Barry - I know zip about here, beyond the fact that she appeared
often in the New York Times weekend magazine, "Current History". I hope you
find it useful.”
I certainly
have Matt – thank you for sending me on another amazing journey researching the
women poets of WW1. I haven't yet been able to find out anything about Beatrice M. Barry either, other than the fact that she had poems published in the "New York Times" - if anyone can help please get in touch.
“ANSWERING
THE ‘HASSGESANG’ “ By Beatrice M. Barry – was one of the poems written in
response to the poem written by German poet Ernst Lissauer (1882 – 1937) - “Hassgesong gegen England” (A Hymn of Hate
against England) which was published in a pamphlet in August 1914 “Worte in die
Zeit – Flugblatter 1914 von Ernst Lissauer”.
You will find the text of the original German of Ernst Lissauer’s poem,
together with a translation by Barbara Henderson by following this link: http://newprairiepress.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1928&context=sttcl
For England
only your wrath is hot;
But little
Belgium is so small
You never
mentioned her at all —
Or did her
graveyards, yawning deep,
Whisper that
silence was discreet?
For Belgium
is waste! Ay, Belgium is waste!
She welters
in the blood of her sons,
And the
ruins that fill the little place
Speak of the
vengeance of the Huns.
"Come,
let us stand at the Judgment place,"
German and
Belgian, face to face.
What can you
say? What can you do?
What will
history say of you?
For even the
Hun can only say
That little
Belgium lay in his way.
Is there no
reckoning you must pay?
What of the
Justice of that "Day"?
Belgium one
voices — Belgium one cry
Shrieking
her wrongs, inflicted by
GERMANY!
In her
ruined homesteads, her trampled fields,
You have
taken your toll, you have set your seal;
Her women
are homeless, her men are dead,
Her children
pitifully cry for bread;
Perchance
they will drink with you — "To the Day!"
Let each man
construe it as he may.
What shall
it be?
They, too,
have but one enemy;
Whose work
is this?
Belgium has but
one word to hiss —
GERMANY!
Take you the
pick of your fighting men
Trained in
all warlike arts, and then
Make of them
all a human wedge
To break and
shatter your sacred pledge;
You may
fling your treaty lightly by,
But that
"scrap of paper" will never die!
It will go
down to posterity,
It will
survive in eternity.
Truly you
hate with a lasting hate;
Think you
you will escape that hate?
"Hate
by water and hate by land;
Hate of the
head and hate of the hand."
Black and
bitter and bad as sin,
Take you
care lest it hem you in,
Lest the
hate you boast of be yours alone,
And curses,
like chickens, find roost at home
IN GERMANY!
First
published in “The New York Times” on 16th October 1914.
From
“Contemporary War Poems” (New York American Association for International
Coalition)
