Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/50

 Miss Helena Coleman of Toronto was born_at Newcastle, Ontario, and educated at home and at Whitby Ladies College. Her father was the late Rev. Francis Coleman of the Methodist ministry. The well-known geologist, Professor A. T. Coleman, Ph.D., F.R.S., is her brother.. Author. of 'Songs and Sonnets,' Marching Men,' etc.

N France's flowered fields they lie,
 * And she will hold them close and dear,

Above their graves her trees will sigh,
 * Her grasses cover them year by year.

They were to us mere laughing boys,
 * But in the passing of a breath

They turned from life's scarce-tasted joys
 * To this high majesty of death.

O France, when coming springs shall break
 * In foam of bloom to hide thy scars,

And flowers of human kindness make
 * An end of agonies and wars,

Forget not these our sons who came
 * At that first wild, bewildered cry

With their young British hearts aflame
 * Upon thy tragic hills to die!

Still have them in thy guarding care,
 * A holy and a cherished trust,

And let thy children come with prayer
 * To dream awhile beside their dust;—

To dream of tender love and ruth,
 * And give a passing thought to these

Who trod the star-lit ways of truth,
 * Bondsmen of British loyalties!

And since upon thy heart lies now
 * The richest ransom ever paid—

White roses torn from England's brow
 * Beside thy broken lilies laid—