Flowers Of France' Decoration Poem For Soldiers' Graves, Tours, France, May 30, 1918 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDDCB EFEGHI JKJKLM NONOPP ADADQQ RSRST UVUVWXOYOYZA2 B2C2C2C2D2D2 E2F2E2F2C2C2 G2C2G2C2H2H2 C2QC2QI2I2 AABCC2C2CB| Flowers of France in the Spring | A |
| Your growth is a beautiful thing | A |
| But give us your fragrance and bloom | B |
| Yea give us your lives in truth | C |
| Give us your sweetness and grace | D |
| To brighten the resting place | D |
| Of the flower of manhood and youth | C |
| Gone into the dust of the tomb | B |
| - | |
| This is the vast stupendous hour of Time | E |
| When nothing counts but sacrifice and faith | F |
| Service and self forgetfulness Sublime | E |
| And awful are these moments charged with death | G |
| And red with slaughter Yet God's purpose thrives | H |
| In all this holocaust of human lives | I |
| - | |
| I say God's purpose thrives Just in the measure | J |
| That men have flung away their lust for gain | K |
| Stopped in their mad pursuit of worldly pleasure | J |
| And boldly faced unprecedented pain | K |
| And dangers without thinking of the cost | L |
| So thrives God's purpose in the holocaust | M |
| - | |
| Death is a little thing all men must die | N |
| But when ideals die God grieves in Heaven | O |
| Therefore I think it was the reason why | N |
| This Armageddon to the world was given | O |
| The Soul of man forgetful of its birth | P |
| Was losing sight of everything but earth | P |
| - | |
| Up from these many million graves shall spring | A |
| A shining harvest for the coming race | D |
| An Army of Invisibles shall bring | A |
| A glorified lost faith back to its place | D |
| And men shall know there is a higher goal | Q |
| Than earthly triumphs for the human soul | Q |
| - | |
| They are not dead they are not dead I say | R |
| These men whose mortal forms are in the sod | S |
| A grand Advance Guard marching on its way | R |
| Their Souls move upwards to salute their God | S |
| While to their comrades who are in the strife | T |
| They cry 'Fight on Death is the dawn of life ' | - |
| - | |
| We had forgotten all the depth and beauty | U |
| And lofty purport of that old true word | V |
| Deplaced by pleasure that old good word DUTY | U |
| Now by its meaning is the whole world stirred | V |
| These men died for it for it now we give | W |
| And sacrifice and serve and toil and live | X |
| From out our hearts had gone a high devotion | O |
| For anything It took a mighty wrath | Y |
| Against great evil to wake strong emotion | O |
| And put us back upon the righteous path | Y |
| It took a mingled stream of tears and blood | Z |
| To cut the channel through to Brotherhood | A2 |
| - | |
| That word meant nothing on our lips in peace | B2 |
| We had despoiled it by our castes and classes | C2 |
| But when this savage carnage finds surcease | C2 |
| A new ideal will unite the masses | C2 |
| And there shall be True Brotherhood with men | D2 |
| The Christly Spirit stirring earth again | D2 |
| - | |
| For this our men have suffered fought and died | E2 |
| And we who can but dimly see the end | F2 |
| Are guarded by their spirits glorified | E2 |
| Who help us on our way while they ascend | F2 |
| They are not dead they are not dead I say | C2 |
| These men whose graves we decorate to day | C2 |
| - | |
| America and France walk hand in hand | G2 |
| As one their hearts beat through the coming years | C2 |
| One is the aim and purpose of each land | G2 |
| Baptized with holy water of their tears | C2 |
| To day they worship with one faith and know | H2 |
| Grief's first Communion in God's House of Woe | H2 |
| - | |
| Great Liberty the Goddess at our gates | C2 |
| And great Jeanne d'Arc are fused into one soul | Q |
| A host of Angels on that soul awaits | C2 |
| To lead it up to triumph at the goal | Q |
| Along the path of Victory they tread | I2 |
| Moves the majestic cortege of our dead | I2 |
| - | |
| Flowers of France in the Spring | A |
| Your growth is a beautiful thing | A |
| But give us your fragrance and bloom | B |
| Yea give us your lives in truth | C |
| Give us your sweetness and grace | C2 |
| To brighten the resting place | C2 |
| Of the flower of manhood and youth | C |
| Gone into the dust of the tomb | B |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(1)
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