Rouge Bouquet / Joyce Kilmer

Rouge Bouquet is a lyric poem written in 1917-1918 by American poet Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918). The poem commemorates the loss of 21 fellow soldiers of the U.S. 69th Infantry Division, "The Fighting Sixty Ninth". Kilmer's poem was read over their graves in March 1918. It is traditional in the regiment to read the poem at memorial services for fallen members of the regiment, adding their names to the list of the dead in the appropriate line, and it was read over his own grave five months after he wrote it:

Rouge Bouquet

 * In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet
 * There is a new-made grave to-day,
 * Built by never a spade nor pick
 * Yet covered with earth ten metres thick.
 * There lie many fighting men,
 * Dead in their youthful prime,
 * Never to laugh nor love again
 * Nor taste the Summertime.
 * For Death came flying through the air
 * And stopped his flight at the dugout stair,
 * Touched his prey and left them there,
 * Clay to clay.
 * He hid their bodies stealthily
 * In the soil of the land they fought to free
 * And fled away.
 * Now over the grave abrupt and clear
 * Three volleys ring;
 * And perhaps their brave young spirits hear
 * The bugle sing:
 * “Go to sleep!
 * Go to sleep!
 * Slumber well where the shell screamed and fell.
 * Let your rifles rest on the muddy floor,
 * You will not need them any more.
 * Danger’s past;
 * Now at last,
 * Go to sleep!”


 * There is on earth no worthier grave
 * To hold the bodies of the brave
 * Than this place of pain and pride
 * Where they nobly fought and nobly died.
 * Never fear but in the skies
 * Saints and angels stand
 * Smiling with their holy eyes
 * On this new-come band.
 * St. Michael’s sword darts through the air
 * And touches the aureole on his hair
 * As he sees them stand saluting there,
 * His stalwart sons;
 * And Patrick, Brigid, Columkill
 * Rejoice that in veins of warriors still
 * The Gael’s blood runs.
 * And up to Heaven’s doorway floats,
 * From the wood called Rouge Bouquet
 * A delicate cloud of buglenotes
 * That softly say:
 * “Farewell!
 * Farewell!
 * Comrades true, born anew, peace to you!
 * Your souls shall be where the heroes are
 * And your memory shine like the morning-star.
 * Brave and dear,
 * Shield us here.
 * Farewell!”