{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/the-red-flower",
 "title": "The Red Flower",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "June, 1914",
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16229",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16134",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10679",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3525",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9372",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/toilingoffelixan00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoutofdoors0000vand",
   "https://archive.org/details/thyseaisgreatour00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/chosenpoems0000vand"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 1
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "In the pleasant time of Pentecost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the little river Kyll,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I followed the angler’s winding path",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or waded the stream at will,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the friendly fertile German land",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lay round me green and still.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But all day long on the eastern bank",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the river cool and clear,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the curving track of the double rails",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was hardly seen though near,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The endless trains of German troops",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Went rolling down to Trier.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They packed the windows with bullet heads",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And caps of hodden gray;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They laughed and sang and shouted loud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the trains were brought to a stay;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They waved their hands and sang again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As they went on their iron way.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No shadow fell on the smiling land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No cloud arose in the sky;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I could hear the river’s quiet tune",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the trains had rattled by;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But my heart sank low with a heavy sense",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of trouble⁠—I knew not why.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then came I into a certain field",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the devil’s paint-brush spread",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "‘Mid the gray and green of the rolling hills",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A flaring splotch of red⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "An evil omen, a bloody sign,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a token of many dead.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I saw in a vision the field-gray horde",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Break forth at the devil’s hour,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And trample the earth into crimson mud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the rage of the Will to Power⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All this I dreamed in the valley of Kyll,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At the sign of the blood-red flower.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}