But no real attention was paid to the American notes. Edith Cavell was sentenced at five o'clock on the afternoon of October 11, and was put to death that same night.
Permission was refused to take her body for burial outside the prison. It is doubtless still buried in the prison yard unless the Germans have removed it for fear a monument may be erected above it. The English are to erect a monument in her honor in London. Dr. James M. Beck, in writing about her case, says of her burial in the prison yard, "One can say of that burial place, as Byron said of the prison cell of Chillon: 'Let none these marks efface, for they appeal from tyranny to God.'"
SON[2][ToC]
He hurried away, young heart of joy, under our Devon sky!
And I watched him go, my beautiful boy, and a weary woman was I.
For my hair is gray, and his was gold; he'd the best of his life to live;
And I'd loved him so, and I'm old, I'm old; and he's all I had to give.
Ah, yes, he was proud and swift and gay, but oh, how my eyes were dim!
With the sun in his heart he went away, but he took the sun with him.
For look! How the leaves are falling now, and the winter won't be long....
Oh, boy, my boy with the sunny brow, and the lips of love and of song!
How we used to sit at the day's sweet end, we two by the fire-light's gleam,
And we'd drift to the Valley of Let's Pretend, on the beautiful River of Dream.
Oh, dear little heart! All wealth untold would I gladly, gladly pay
Could I just for a moment closely hold that golden head to my gray.
For I gaze in the fire, and I'm seeing there a child, and he waves to me;
[67] And I run and I hold him up in the air, and he laughs and shouts with glee;
A little bundle of love and mirth, crying: "Come, Mumsie dear!"
Ah, me! If he called from the ends of the earth I know that my heart would hear.