Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/94

‘OUR roses—ah, yonder they grew,
(Pierre s old eyes grew dimmer with pain)
Just under that heap, m’sieu,’
Where they never will grow again.

‘For the walls of the garden fell.
Though Henri had builded true,
When they came with their flaming shell
To the place where our roses grew.

‘Weeds, weeds will inherit the soil—
Tall nettles with toads going through;
But the fruits of our loving toil,
Ah, never again, m’sieu’!

‘For my Marie and I are old—
Much older than young m’sieu’—
And our hope and our strength lie cold
In the place where our roses grew.’

AS blossoms, by an ever-flowing river
Borne out to sea,
Pause for a moment where the sedges shiver
And mourn the bee,
So memories in drifting to the keeping
Of a yet vaster deep
Stay their still passing as the sound of weeping
Falls on their sleep;
And ghostly ships with long-lost crews come sailing
Down the forgotten years—
O God, how swells the symphony of wailing—
Borne on a tide of tears!