For Belgium

Once we thought:

Will the snow ever melt?

Will the broken edges of the earth mend?

Remembering under the snow

The brutal battlefield;

Thinking how the dead horses and cows

Would ripen in the sun of spring,

And the blood would run into the ground.

We do not see,

Now in the warm days of Spring,

The land behind us, paid for and passed.

We walk in the charmed circle

Of white flags and terribly quiet people.

So soon do we forget.

So quickly does the snow melt from our minds.

Who then shall remember

With all his winter heart?