The Nightingales of Flanders / Grace Hazard Conkling

The Nightingales of Flanders

"Le rossignol n'est pas mobilisé."
– A French soldier

The nightingales of Flanders,
    They had not gone to war;
A soldier heard them singing
    Where they had sung before.

The earth was torn and quaking,
    The sky about to fall;
The nightingales of Flanders,
    They minded not at all.

At intervals we heard them
    Between the guns, he said,
Making a thrilling music
    Above the listening dead.

Of woodland and of orchard
    And roadside tree bereft,
The nightingales of Flanders
    Were singing, France is left!

~~
Grace Hazard Conkling (1878-1958)
from Wilderness Songs, 1920

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Grace Hazard Conkling biography