Short order, like on any battlefield,
they lay to rest the tens of thousands gone, their struggles lost,
their struggles lost.

And like the fields of war, the fields of flood and quake
no loving ones are present and there's no wake
no wake to mark another little life now spent

Now death has reached his high-tide wrack,
retreats, still watchful, holding back

Here on the country track the ground is green, a chasuble for ordinary days,
sewn rich with bullion .... celandine and daffodil,
now veiled by primrose pale,
now stitched with penitential jewels of crocus and violet.

This then, the eulogy, so many souls reduced to numbered graphs.
The hedge and field have marked each soul,
have marked in a rich requiem of silent flowers
abundant by the hedge, and track and gate
their many passings bathed in bitter showers

their passings bathed, in bitter showers