The Pilgrims
The Pilgrims
Original Text
Lieut.-Col. John McCrae, M.D., In Flanders Fields and Other Poems, With An Essay in Character By Sir Andrew Macphail (Toronto: William Briggs; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1919): 40-41. PS 8474 C715 1919 Robarts Library
1An uphill path, sun-gleams between the showers,
2 Where every beam that broke the leaden sky
3Lit other hills with fairer ways than ours;
4 Some clustered graves where half our memories lie;
5And one grim Shadow creeping ever nigh:
6 And this was Life.
7Wherein we did another's burden seek,
8 The tired feet we helped upon the road,
9The hand we gave the weary and the weak,
10 The miles we lightened one another's load,
11When, faint to falling, onward yet we strode:
12 This too was Life.
13Till, at the upland, as we turned to go
14 Amid fair meadows, disky in the night,
15The mists fell back upon the road below;
16 Broke on our tired eyes the western light;
17The very graves were for a moment bright:
18 And this was Death.
Publication Start Year
1919
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1996-2000.
Rhyme