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Robert Laurence Binyon - To Goethe
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Goethe, who saw and who foretold
 A world revealed
 New--springing from its ashes old
 On Valmy field,

 When Prussia`s sullen hosts retired
 Before the advance
 Of ragged, starved, but freedom--fired
 Soldiers of France;

 If still those clear, Olympian eyes
 Through smoke and rage
 Your ancient Europe scrutinize,
 What think you, Sage?

 Are these the armies of the Light
 That seek to drown
 The light of lands where freedom`s fight
 Has won renown?

 Will they blot also out your name
 Because you praise
 All works of men that shrine the flame
 Of beauty`s ways,

 Wherever men have proved them great,
 Nor, drunk with pride,
 Saw but a single swollen State
 And naught beside,

 Nor dreamed of drilling Europe`s mind
 With threat and blow
 The way professors have designed
 Genius should go?

 Or shall a people rise at length
 And see, and shake
 The fetters from its giant strength,
 And grandly break

 This pedantry of feud and force,
 To man untrue,
 Thundering and blundering on its course
 To death and rue?
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