The Red Flower by Henry van Dyke

June, 1914

In the pleasant time of Pentecost, / By the little river Kyll, / I followed the angler's winding path / Or waded the stream at will, / And the friendly fertile German land / Lay round me green and still.

But all day long on the eastern bank / Of the river cool and clear, / Where the curving track of the double rails / Was hardly seen though near, / The endless trains of German troops / Went rolling down to Trier.

They packed the windows with bullet heads / And caps of hodden gray; / They laughed and sang and shouted loud / When the trains were brought to a stay; / They waved their hands and sang again / As they went on their iron way.

No shadow fell on the smiling land, / No cloud arose in the sky; / I could hear the river's quiet tune / When the trains had rattled by; / But my heart sank low with a heavy sense / Of trouble -- I knew not why.

Then came I into a certain field / Where the devil's paint-brush spread / ‘Mid the gray and green of the rolling hills / A flaring splotch of red --

An evil omen, a bloody sign, / And a token of many dead.

I saw in a vision the field-gray horde / Break forth at the devil's hour, / And trample the earth into crimson mud / In the rage of the Will to Power --

All this I dreamed in the valley of Kyll, / At the sign of the blood-red flower.