FROM "VIMY RIDGE"
(April, 1917)
. . . . . . . . . .
England, our mother, we, thy sons, are young;
Our exultation this day cannot be
Bounded as thine: but thou wilt pardon us,
Thou wilt forgive us if we cry, "Now see!
See now, our mother, these are they that clung
Once to thy breasts, and are they not well sung?"
. . . . . . . . . .
Aye, not since France herself first stood at bay,
To conquer or to die on Marne's green banks,
Driving at last across its crimsoned flood
The flower of Germany in shattered ranks,
Has there been crowded in a single day
More breathless glory for heroic lay.
England, our mother, once our boasting hear!
And in thy streets let flags and banners fly!
To drums and bugles let the people march
While Vimy Ridge is shouted to the sky!
. . . . . . . . . .
Thereafter of our pride let naught be said,
Saving on stone, inscribed with but one line:
Canada—Vimy Ridge—1917
Our hearts the tablets of a secret shrine:
Though henceforth we shall lift a higher head
Because of Vimy and its glorious dead.
Alfred Gordon
From "Vimy Ridge and New Poems"—By permission of the Author and of J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., Toronto