A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919/High Summer
HIGH SUMMER
PINKS and syringa in the garden closes,
And the sweet privet hedge and golden roses,
The pines hot in the sun, the drone of the bee,
They die in Flanders to keep these for me.
The long sunny days and the still weather,
The cuckoo and blackbird shouting together,
The lambs calling their mothers out on the lea,
They die in Flanders to keep these for me.
All doors and windows open: the South wind blowing
Warm through the clean sweet rooms on tiptoe going,
Where many sanctities, dear and delightsome, be,
They die in Flanders to keep these for me.
Daisies leaping in foam on the green grasses,
The dappled sky and the stream that sings as it passes;
These are bought with a price, a bitter fee,
They die in Flanders to keep these for me.