Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/415

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WOMEN AND THE WAR
415

THE JOURNEY

I WENT upon a journey
To countries far away,
From province unto province
To pass my holiday.


And when I came to Serbia,
In a quiet little town
At an inn with a flower-filled garden
With a soldier I sat down.


Now he lies dead at Belgrade.
You heard the cannon roar!
It boomed from Rome to Stockholm,
It pealed to the far west shore.


And when I came to Russia,
A man with flowing hair
Called me his friend and showed me
A flowing river there.


Now he lies dead at Lemberg,
Beside another stream,
In his dark eyes extinguished
The friendship of his dream.


And then I crossed two countries
Whose names on my lips are sealed . . .
Not yet had they flung their challenge
Nor led upon the field


Sons who lie dead at Liège,
Dead by the Russian lance,
Dead in southern mountains,
Dead through the farms of France.


I stopped in the land of Louvain,
So tranquil, happy, then.
I lived with a good old woman,
With her sons and her grandchildren.