Where the flower of French youth
Was crushed
Where the German Empire crashed
Into the wall
Of French resolve
Who had promised
To let none pass
A long, unnatural, violent dreamFrom which no one would wake
21 February–18 December 1916
300,ooo dead
A landscape no longer beautiful
Even if made perfect
The blood red
Would make the fields
Less than pristine
A 9 month battleTearing two empires
From the safety
Of the world afire
Verdun is done
And forgotten
Except by the monuments
Historians with their books
And the dead
Who haunt the fields
