In the Ramah's of our day
Mothers grieve their hearts away,
Mourning comfortless as Rachel did of yore;
Hoping day by day to learn
Of their absent boy’s return
And to hear his well-known footsteps at the door.
The lilies are blooming in far-away France—
Bloom O bloom!
The cannons are roaring retreat and advance—
Boom, O booml
The hell of their fire is falling like rain,
And our soldiers before it are falling like grain,
While the voices of loved ones are calling
in vain— Home, sweet home!

Dear Canadians who fell,
Fighting nobly fighting well,
May the angels guard thy rest in lonely graves;
We’ll remember “ridge” and “hill”
And rejoice in knowing, still,
That the dear old flag you died for rules the waves.
The wild birds are lilting their lay on the breeze.
Soft and low:
As they croon to their nestlings asway in the trees,
To and fro—
The young of the robin will flit down the glen
And return in the spring to the dwellings of men,
But the sons of our mothers return not again—
No, ah no!

And the absent from the fold?
What of those, the gay, the bold?
Fighting bravely, dying nobly, to the fore.
Shall we not avenge the slain?
Shall our mothers weep in vain?
Calling, calling for the boys who come no more.
Dear soldier boys dead in the trenches of war,
Work well done!
Your service for country there’s nothing can mar.
Fame well won!
They fought for the right in a cause that will win-
They died in a fight that they did not begin—
And you’ll pay the last groat when we enter Berlin,
Hun, oh Hun!