Here Dead We Lie - A E Houseman
Here dead we lie because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung,
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.
In Flanders Fields - Lt Col John McCrae
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We loved, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Men Who March Away - Thomas Hardy
In our heart of hearts believing
Victory crowns the just,
And that braggarts must
Surely bite the dust,
Press we to the field ungrieving,
In our heart of hearts believing
Victory crowns the just.
Hence the faith and fire within us
Men who march away
Ere the barn-cocks say
Night is growing grey,
Leaving all that here can win us;
Hence the faith and fire within us
Men who march away.
The Soldier - Rupert Brooke
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.
Aftermath - Siegfried Sassoon
Have you forgotten yet..?
For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same – and War’s a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet..?
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.
Song-Books Of The War - Siegfried Sassoon
In fifty years, when peace outshines
Remembrance of the battle lines,
Adventurous lads will sigh
And cast proud looks upon the plundered past.
On summer morn or winter’s night,
Their hearts will kindle for the fight,
Reading a snatch of soldier’s song,
Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong.
And through the angry, marching rhymes
Of blind regret and haggard mirth,
They’ll envy us the dazzling times,
When sacrifice absolved our earth.
