The Nightingales of Flanders Grace Hazard Conkling

in Everybody’s Magazine

Permission to reproduce in this book.

“Le rossignol n’est pas mobilise.”—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!”