Where waggons crawl with anxious wheel
And o'er the marshland desolate
Win slowly to the battered gate
That Flemings call the Gate of Lille.
Yet by some wonder it befalls
That, where the lonely outer walls
Brood in the silent pool below,
Among the sedges of the moat,
Like lilies furled, the two swans float;
"The Swans of Ypres" men call them now.