Everywhere it was copied--in metropolitan dailies and little village weeklies--in profound reviews and "agony columns," in Red Cross appeals and Government recruiting propaganda.

Mothers and sisters wept over it, young lads thrilled to it, the whole great heart of humanity caught it up as an epitome of all the pain and hope and pity and purpose of the mighty conflict, crystallized in three brief immortal verses.

A Canadian lad in the Flanders trenches had written the one great poem of the war.

"The Piper," by Pte.

Walter Blythe, was a classic from its first printing.
Rilla copied it in her diary at the beginning of an entry in which she poured out the story of the hard week that had just passed.
"It has been such a dreadful week," she wrote, "and even though it is over and we know that it was all a mistake that does not seem to do away with the bruises left by it.