At Boesinghe in Belgium Francis Ledwidge fell <br />Killed there by an exploding shell <br />And he did not go home again <br />To Ireland, County Meath and Slane. <br /> <br />In Belgium the bones of the poet soldier lay <br />He did not live to grow old and gray <br />The reaper took him in his prime <br />And Ireland lost her Prince of rhyme. <br /> <br />Francis Ledwidge had a way with words <br />He sang of the fields, the woods and birds <br />And with Nature's great poets he belong <br />And there is beauty in his song. <br /> <br />His nickname the 'Irish John Clare' <br />With Nature's great poets he compare <br />And he was one who died so young <br />And his best songs had not yet been sung. <br /> <br />He mourned for Elly Vaughey when she died <br />The flower of his own countryside <br />The greatest love he ever knew <br />And to her memory he was true. <br /> <br />A soldier and a man of rhyme <br />He fell in Belgium in his prime <br />And in Belgium his bones remain <br />Far from the fields and woods of Slane.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-soldier-and-a-man-of-rhyme/
