In France I Saw A Hill

In France I saw a hill - a gentle slope
Rising above old tombs to greet the gleam
From soft spring skies.    Beyond these skies dwells hope,
But those green graves bespeak a broken dream.

There was a row of narrow beds, new-made;
Each bore a starry banner and a cross.
And each the name of one who, ere he played
His role of warrior, met earth's final loss.

They were so young, so eager for the fray!
And thoughts of glory filled each boyish heart,
When over dangerous seas they sailed away
To face the foe and play some splendid part.

But in the tedious toil, the dull routine
Which must precede achievement on the field,
Disease, that secret enemy with mean
Sly tactics, forced them to disarm and yield.

So they were buried on that hill in France,
Before their ears had heard the battle din;
Before life gave them its dramatic chance -
A lasting fame, or glorious death to win.

Yet, looking up beyond their graves of green,
I seem to see them wearing band and star;
Men are rewarded in the Worlds Unseen
Not for the way they die, but what they are.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet, born on November 5, 1850, and died on October 30, 1919. She was known for her works expressing optimistic views and moral lessons. Her most famous book was 'Poems of Passion'. Her poem 'Solitude' contains the famous lines, 'Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone'. Over her career, Wilcox became popularly known as a 'people's poet'.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I Am

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Life

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Honeymoon Scene (From The Drama Of Mizpah)

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

An Inspiration

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

English

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Flowers Of France' Decoration Poem For Soldiers' Graves, Tours, France, May 30, 1918

Flowers of France in the Spring,
Your growth is a beautiful thing;
But give us your fragrance and bloom -
Yea, give us your lives in truth,
Give us your sweetness and grace
To brighten the resting-place
Of the flower of manhood and youth,
Gone into the dust of the tomb.

This is the vast stupendous hour of Time,
When nothing counts but sacrifice and faith,
Service and self-forgetfulness.    Sublime
And awful are these moments charged with death
And red with slaughter.    Yet God's purpose thrives
In all this holocaust of human lives.

I say God's purpose thrives.    Just in the measure
That men have flung away their lust for gain,
Stopped in their mad pursuit of worldly pleasure,
And boldly faced unprecedented pain
And dangers, without thin...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Memorial Day -1892

The quiet graves of our country's braves
    Through thirty Junes and Decembers
Have solemnly lain under sun and rain,
    And yet the Nation remembers.

The marching of feet and the flags on the street
    Told once again this morning,
In the voice of the drum how the day had come
    For those lowly beds' adorning.

Then swiftly back on Time's worn track
    His three decades seemed driven,
And with startled eyes I saw arise,
    From graves by fancy riven,

The Gray and Blue in a grand review.
    Oh! vast were the hosts they numbered,
As they wheeled and swayed in a dress parade
    O'er the graves where they long had slumbered.

The colours were not, as when they fought,
    Ranked one against the other,
But a mingled hue of ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Beyond.

        It seemeth such a little way to me
    Across to that strange country - the Beyond;
        And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be
    The home of those of whom I am so fond,
        They make it seem familiar and most dear,
        As journeying friends bring distant regions near.

        So close it lies that when my sight is clear
    I think I almost see the gleaming strand.
        I know I feel those who have gone from here
    Come near enough sometimes to touch my hand.
        I often think, but for our veiled eyes,
        We should find Heaven right round about us lies.

        I cannot make it seem a day to dread,
    When from this dear earth I shall journey out
        To that still dearer country of the dead,
    And join th...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Heroes.

    In rich Virginian woods,
The scarlet creeper reddens over graves,
Among the solemn trees enlooped with vines;
Heroic spirits haunt the solitudes, -
The noble souls of half a million braves,
    Amid the murmurous pines.


    Ah! who is left behind,
Earnest and eloquent, sincere and strong,
To consecrate their memories with words
Not all unmeet? with fitting dirge and song
To chant a requiem purer than the wind,
    And sweeter than the birds?


    Here, though all seems at peace,
The placid, measureless sky serenely fair,
The laughter of the breeze among the leaves,
The bars of sunlight slanting through the trees,
The reckless wild-flowers blooming everywhere,
    The grasses' delicate sheaves, -


    Nathless eac...

Emma Lazarus

Bellinglise

    I

Deep in the sloping forest that surrounds
The head of a green valley that I know,
Spread the fair gardens and ancestral grounds
Of Bellinglise, the beautiful chateau.
Through shady groves and fields of unmown grass,
It was my joy to come at dusk and see,
Filling a little pond's untroubled glass,
Its antique towers and mouldering masonry.
Oh, should I fall to-morrow, lay me here,
That o'er my tomb, with each reviving year,
Wood-flowers may blossom and the wood-doves croon;
And lovers by that unrecorded place,
Passing, may pause, and cling a little space,
Close-bosomed, at the rising of the moon.


    II

Here, where in happier times the huntsman's horn
Echoing from far made sweet midsummer eves,
Now serried cannon thunder n...

Alan Seeger

On The Western Front

(1916)


I.

I found a dreadful acre of the dead,
    Marked with the only sign on earth that saves.
The wings of death were hurrying overhead,
    The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves;

For the deep gun-pits, with quick stabs of flame,
    Made their own thunders of the sunlit air;
Yet, as I read the crosses, name by name,
    Mort pour la France, it seemed that peace was there;
Sunlight and peace, a peace too deep for thought,
    The peace of tides that underlie our strife,
The peace with which the moving heavens are fraught,
    The peace that is our everlasting life.

The loose earth shook. The very hills were stirred.
The silence of the dead was all I heard.


II.

We, who lie here, have...

Alfred Noyes