Ypres was once a weaving town,
Where merchants jostled up and down
And merry shuttles used to ply;
On the looms the fleeces were
Brought from the mart at Winchester,
And silver flax from Burgundy.

Who is weaving there to-night?
Only the moon, whose shuttle white
Makes silver warp on dyke and pond;
Her hands fling veils of lily-woof
On riven spire and open roof
And on the haggard marsh beyond.

No happy ghosts or fairies haunt
The ancient city, huddling gaunt,
Where waggons crawl with anxious wheel
And o'er the marshland desolate
Win slowly to the battered gate
That Flemings call the Gate of Lille.

Yet by some wonder it befalls
That, where the lonely outer walls
Brood in the silent pool below,
Among the sedges of the moat,
Like lilies furled, the two swans float;
"The Swans of Ypres" men call them now.

They have heard guns and many men