Near the pebbly shores grows a green elm-tree.
Under the tree a soldier is dying.
Comes a young Captain bearing a gold handkerchief: he weeps with fine, fine tears.
" O Captain, my Captain, weep not!
Send word to my friends to come and build me a house. "

With rifles shining like silver his comrades came.
They wept over his head with fine tears.
" Weep not; O ye, my dear friends; tell my father and mother to hasten here from the country to bury me. "

" Where, O my son, shall we dig thy grave? "

" Nay, neither of you shall bury me; the young soldiers only shall bear me there. "

So they bore him, leading his horse before him; behind the coffin his mother walked, weeping. Even more wept his sweetheart. The tears of his mother would not make him rise from the dead; but his sweetheart was crying and wringing her hands.

For never before had a soldier been her lover:
And never again would a soldier be one.