Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/179

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179

REFLECTIONS

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Tower of Ypres, a little slept your glory,  Lips again are busy with your name, Ypres again is famous in our story,  Ypres of Flanders, wrapt in blood and flame—   Here the spring song,   There black ruin, hate and death and wrong. Dear grey Sussex town, your childlike beauty,  Passing price and more desired than gold, Speaks to English souls of love, and duty  Faithful in the little wars of old—   In our hearts still   Live your dreaming fens, your bastioned hill. Everard Owen April, 1917.

A SUMMER MORNING

THE summer meads are fair with daisy-snow,  White as the dove's wing, flawless as the foam  On the brown beaches where the breakers comb When the long Trades their morning bugles blow; And over all there is a golden glow,  For the sun sits ascendant in the dome;  And smoke-wreaths rise from many a cottage home Where there is peace, and joy's full overflow. This is our heritage, but what of those  Who crouch where Yser's sad, ensanguined tide   Winds with its sluggish crescents, toward the sea;  Where Termonde bells are silent, and the wide And stricken leagues of Flemish land disclose   The ruthless wrong, the piteous agony! Clinton Scollard