WAR AND WARRIORS

GRANDDADS WAR

In South Africa during the Boer War
Granddad got the key of the door
In France during World War 1
He lay wounded when the day was done

He could have met a very bloody end
But for the bravery of his friend
So he lived to fight another day instead
And died an old man in his own bed

THE SOLDIER’S LAST MUSTER

When the sun is in the west
You will safely go to rest
At the setting of the sun
With your soldiers duties done
You will feel your God is nigh
As you ascend up to the sky
And in earths fading light
Where tears diminish sight
Where loved ones question why
A new star will grace the sky
Gleaming bright in the firmament
Proudly amongst the regiment
To mark the passing of a soldier son
Who died not seeing victory won
Now the time that moves us most
The plaintive lament of the last post
For those falling fighting foes
Heads bow as the bugle blows

BEFORE THE KAISER CAME

Before the Kaiser came
Swallows fed on the wing
Above green meadows
Butterflies danced on the breeze
And birdsong filled the copses

Then the Kaiser came
And no longer did birds sing
Mud filled the meadows
Gunfire echoed on the breeze
And rats fed on the corpses

FLANDERS ENDURED

A wondrous pastoral scene
Green fields and meadows
Woodland and hedgerows
Unchanged for centuries
A beautiful place, a safe place
Then came war’s unkind caress
Which swept away the green
Repainted the pastoral scene
In shades of brown
And turned everything to mud
Tree trunks devoid of branches
Stood like rows of rotted teeth
In the mouth of hell
The fetid stench of detritus
Filled the air
All this did Flanders endure
The blood, the mud, the tears
For four long years
Now another kinder hand
Has touched the land
And colour has returned
From the paint box of peace

SERRIED ROWS OF CROSSES

The landscape changed
From peace to bloody war
A hellish muddy landscape
Those men had to endure

And when war was ended
The living had moved on
The dead remained on parade
To forever guard the Somme

The landscape changed
From bloody war to peace
A sombre mark of the passing
Of those who fell before the cease

Serried ranks of white crosses
Marking those who stayed
To be forever remembered
These fallen comrades on parade

FIGHTING TALK

“You’re fighting for a just cause”
That is the justification
“You’ll make the world a safer place”
“You’ll protect your nation”

These are the politician’s words
Spoken with passion and pride
Spoken away from the line of fire
Spoken from where warmongers hide

Men of empty rhetoric
These politicians never see danger
Safe on their leather seats
They never hear shots fired in anger

PROUD HERITAGE

Like many Englishmen
When our history is revealed
My forebears shed their blood
Men who never thought to yield
On the battlefields of England
And on many a foreign field