And rend the unripened growth of tender spring,
Fields rent asunder by the cleaving share,
And harrowed with a dreadful harrowing,
Until the rock lies bare;
A generation ended ere begun,
Corn cut before the larks have time to sing!
Poppies of Flanders, banners of the grain,
That ye are colored red I do not wonder,
Since English blood hath watered all your plain,
And layer on layer of English dust lies under—
Soldiers of English Harry,
Longbowmen of the proud Plantagenet—
But seldom did their clothyard shafts miscarry—
English in armor in close battle set,
Of clashing thrust and parry;
Soldiers of Cromwell, when we fell asunder,
And soldiers of five Georges there are met.
The endless generations of the brave,
With English jests and laughter setting out,
With fife and drum and bugle to their grave
In Flanders, England's outermost redoubt,
The field beyond her sea,
The glacis of her moat, her first defense,
The starting place of every enemy,
Her warning beacon, where her wars commence,
