The Little Blue Forget-Me-Not

Better than the best from the beginning,
Since eighteen-twelve with Isaac Brock,
Long before the graves were red with poppies,
They wore the blue forget-me-not.

Graveyards full of heroes fallen,
And stones that bear no soldiers' names,
Whose souls to heaven long departed,
Their praises sung at Menin’s Gate.

Where the words of John McCrea still echo,
In Passchendaele where their blood ran deep,
They had gunfire o’er the fields of Flanders,
They died in droves ’round the town of Ypres.

Forget-me-not, wee flower of beauty,
Your royal symbol proudly stands,
Blue as the loyal men that wore them,
Far from their homes in Newfoundland.

On Hamel’s grass the sheep are grazing,
Where trenches overgrown now lie,
In stillness ’round the Tree of Danger,
In France’s blue and cloudless sky.

Where the Caribou stands ever watchful,
Or Vimy where our young men fought,
In memory of those valiant comrades,
Who wore the blue forget-me-not.

Now, days on end, alone they slumber,
In Hamel, Monchy, and the Somme,
Beneath the flowers and the small birds singing,
Rest with their blue forget-me-not.

Forget-me-not, blue tiny blossom,
Grows wild where loyalty is wrought;
Undaunted by Atlantic fury,
Bred like the blue forget-me-not.

Forget-me-not, blue tiny blossom,
Long may you grow on soldiers’ graves;
And with the scarlet of the poppy,
Remind us of the loyal and brave,
Lest we forget the price they paid.