IF I could only see again The house we passed on the long Flemish road That day When the Army went from Antwerp, through Bruges, to the sea; The house with the slender door, And the one thin row of shutters, grey as dust on the white wall. It stood low and alone in the flat Flemish land, And behind it the high slender trees were small under the sky. It looked Through windows blurred like women's eyes that have cried too long. There is not anyone there whom I know, I have never sat by its hearth, I have never crossed its threshold, I have never opened its door, I have never stood by its windows looking in; Yet its eyes said: "You have seen four cities of Flanders: Ostend, and Bruges, and Antwerp under her doom, And the dear city of Ghent; And there is none of them that you shall remember As you remember me." I remember so well, That at night, at night I cannot sleep in England here; But I get up, and I go: Not to the cities of Flanders, Not to Ostend and the sea, Not to the city of Bruges, or the city of Antwerp, or the city of Ghent, But somewhere In the fields Where the high slender trees are small under the sky— If I could only see again The house we passed that day. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE MAD WOMAN'S SONG by KAREN SWENSON MINIVER CHEEVY by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON EPIGRAM by DECIMUS MAGNUS AUSONIUS A CHARACTER OF HIS FRIEND, W.B. ESQ by PHILIP AYRES THE SOLDIER'S RETURN by ROBERT BURNS UPON MASTER WALTER MONTAGUE HIS RETURN FROM TRAVEL by THOMAS CAREW |