Twenty Years After

November, 1917

Where men make bloody sacrifice, And pile the earth with slain, Kind Mother Nature ever tries To cover up the stain. 'Mid charnel of the tiger's den May pure white lilies blow, And on the graves of warlike men The peaceful daisies grow.

The grass is all the greener now Where men most fiercely strove, And maids may hear on Vimy's brow The cooing of the dove. Where cannon roared by night and day, And men in thousands fell, The sunny headed children play, And pick up bits of shell.

Where once raged war's infernal din, And bullets fell like rain The peaceful peasants gather in A hundred fold of grain; And where men plied the deadly steel, And blood ran red like wine, We see the holy sisters kneel Beside the rebuilt shrine.

And over on the rising ground The fresh young maples stand To mark the graves of those who found Death in a foreign land; Here women of the nameless woes, Still pray when day is done, That God will rest the souls of those Who strafed the hellish Hun.