Oh, you that took our sin and pain
Upon your shoulders long ago,
Are you come back to earth again,
About the battle do you go ?
By trenches where with bitter cries
Men's spirits leave their tortured clay,
Oh, wanderer with the mournful eyes,
Are you on Flanders soil to-day ?

The battle fog is wreathed and curled
Before us, that we cannot see
The darkness of the newer world
As your eternal agony,
The gallant hearts, the bitter blood,
The pains of them that have not died,
A bright light in the eyes of God
And a sharp spear-point in his side.