Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 183, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1919 — THE SWANS OF YPRES [ARTICLE]

THE SWANS OF YPRES

Ypres was once a weaving town. Where merchants jostled up and down. And merry shuttles used to ply; On the looms the fleeces were Brought from the mart at Winchester, And silver fox from Burgundy. Who is weaving there tonight? Only* the moon, whose shuttle white Makes silver warp on dyke and pond; Her hands fling veils of lily-woof On riven spire and open roof And on haggard marsh beyond. ~ No happy ghosts or fairies haunt Tire aqcient city, huddling gaunt. ... Where wagons crawl with anxious wheel. And o’er the marsh land desolate Wind slowly to the battered gate That Flemings call the gate of Lille. Yet fcy some wonder it befalls That, where the lonely outer walls ■ Brood in the silent pool below, Among the sedges of the moat, Like lilies furled, the two swans float; The Swans of Ypres, men call them now. They have heard guns and many men Come and depart and dome again; They have seeu strange, disastrous things. When fire and fume rolled o’er their nest; But changeless and aloof they fest. The Swans of Ypres, with folded wings. —Anonymous, from Punch.