Before I joined the Army
I lived in Donegal,
Where every night the Fairies
Would hold their carnival.
But now I'm out in Flanders,
Where men like wheat-ears fall,
And it's Death and not the Fairies
Who is holding carnival.
_Francis Ledwidge_
Francis Ledwidge was born in Slane, County Meath, Ireland, in 1891.
His brief life was fitful and romantic. He was, at various times, a
miner, a grocer's clerk, a farmer, a scavenger, an experimenter in
hypnotism, and, at the end, a soldier. He served as a lance-corporal
on the Flanders front and was killed in July, 1917, at the age of 26
years.
Ledwidge's poetry is rich in nature imagery; his lines are full of
color, in the manner of Keats, and unaffectedly melodious.