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The Night Cometh

John McCrae

Cometh the night.  The wind falls low,
The trees swing slowly to and fro:
 Around the church the headstones grey
 Cluster, like children strayed away
But found again, and folded so.

No chiding look doth she bestow:
If she is glad, they cannot know;
 If ill or well they spend their day,
            Cometh the night.

Singing or sad, intent they go;
They do not see the shadows grow;
 “There yet is time,” they lightly say,
 “Before our work aside we lay”;
Their task is but half-done, and lo!
            Cometh the night.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From In Flanders Fields And Other Poems | New York, 1919
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