Once in a Belgian garden,
(Ah, many months ago!)
I saw like pale Madonnas
The tall white lilies blow.
Great poplars swayed and trembled
Afar against the sky,
And green with flags and rushes
The river wandered by.
Amid the waving wheatfields
Glowed poppies blazing red,
And showering strange wild music
A lark rose overhead.
*****
The lark has ceased his singing,
The wheat is trodden low,
And in the blood-stained garden
No more the lilies blow.
And where green poplars trembled
Stand shattered trunks instead,
And lines of small white crosses
Keep guard above the dead.
For here brave lads and noble,
From lands beyond the deep,
Beneath the small white crosses
Have laid them down to sleep.
They laid them down with gladness
Upon the alien plain,
That this same Belgian garden
Might bud and bloom again.