The snow lies thick on Valley Forge
The ice on the Delaware
But the poor dead soldiers of King George
They neither know nor care

Not though the earliest primrose break
On the sunny side of the lane
And scuffling rookeries awake
Their England's spring again

They will not stir when the drifts are gone
Or the ice melts out of the bay:
And the men that served with Washington
Lie all as still as they

They will not stir though the mayflower blows
In the moist dark woods of pine
And every rock-strewn pasture shows
Mullein and columbine

Each for his land, in a fair fight
Encountered, strove, and died
And the kindly earth that knows no spite
Covers them side by side

She is too busy to think of war;
She has all the world to make gay;
And, behold, the yearly flowers are
Where they were in our fathers' day!
Golden-rod by the pasture-wall
When the columbine is dead
And sumach leaves that turn, in fall
Bright as the blood they shed