News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1917-05-23
The Bombardment of Rheims,
Fall of 1914
BY Ros lie B. ROONEY

ID AUS IL O' 1NOONLi
IT'S boom! boom! boom!
That horrid German gun
Boom! boom! boom,
Storms till mercileSs work is done.
When bomb aud shell are bursting
And blazing all around;
IT'S fight for life or lose it,
AS destruction covers ground.
The city clocks were calling
Out the midnight hour;
When shot and shell in torrents fell
With all a German power.
Crowds rush out in terror,
Out into the awful sight
NOught to guard or guide them,
But their burning buildings light.
IT'S boom! boom! boom!
That horrid German gun
Boom! boom boom!
Storms till mtTciIess work is done.
" lien shells dnd bombs are bursting
And blazing all around,
Els fight for life or lose it
AS destruction covers ground.
Bells with their high old beIfries,
owayiug, tottering fell
Save one in Rheims Old Cathedral
still swaying tolls the knell.
Oh the maddeuing cries that reno the air
The freuzied rush for they know not
where
Leaving in agonizihg despair
Hosts of helpless the flames to share
Crash! crash! outcome of fiendish desire
The CRASHING of life. this funeral pyre.
The seething of hell this warpath of fire,
LashiDg It's flames leaps higher and
higher,
Ofsuch horror we can but family tell
Tolls forth Rheims Old Cathedral bell.
And 10, Francis once proud city
Is shattered beyond repair;
Wrecked through German vengeance
Into merciless despair;
Pen tails to paint picture,
SO stricken and intense;
AS shells, fire and bursting bombs,
Cause wreckage so immense;
Oh such horror we can but family tell,
Tolls forth, Rheims Old Cathedral bell.
Rheims wreathed in smoke is echoing still
TIE bomb commanding vale and hill;
Yet stands the Old Cathedral,
Where no less than twenty shells
Have burst inside its onyx walls,
AS abundant wTeckage tells.
Still to and fro, as if swaying slow
OILS IOftO tnaC aWtul knell;
For the dead and dying,
OF sucn horror we can but family tell
Tolls forth Rheims Old Cathedral bell.
How this horror stricken city means,
The loss of NE, the loss of homes;
Much that's gone from once fair Rheims,
Has gone forever in fiery streams.
Her streets are shattered, smoking mass
Checked and dying the people pass
Some each day will get away,
But the helpless are ever left to stay,
OF such horror we can but family tell
Tolls forth Rheims Old Cathedral bell.
How sweeps the war cries fitful wall
Shells and bombs they stagger pale
Descriptions of such horror
Fail TO paint the agOnizing trail
OF the vengeance, of the beast in man
As he works a hell in his warning plan,
Breaks in slumbering hours of night
The havoc of his mdrderous fight,
OF such horror we can but family tell
Tolls forth, Rheims Old Cathedral bell.
Ay from meath burning debris rise the
cry
OF the many who are left to die;
The living unheeding passes by;
Each for himself escape or die.
Think if you can of this savage state
Which exists today, in wars of hate;
Where power compels this awful fate
Man must learn though it be late
His right as man though small or great
And the Golden Rule" our Savior taught
Which now by greed is most forgot,
Must shine in every cline as well
To peace restore (Peals forth the belD
FOrevermore, fOreveTmOre.