|
It seems so odd that gunfire, we can no longer hear That terrible sound we lived with for four long years. The memories and the horrible stench Of our dead friends laying in the trench And the clouds of Mustard gas that make you wrench As you lay gasping for air on a bench. This is the eleventh month of the eighteenth year The survivors are crawling out of their trench's to stand and cheer. Few are still around that came here four years ago. Most all perished in the mud and snow Struck down by the enemy's constant blow's Or disappeared in action.Where to? we shall never know. From Vimy Ridge to the Argonne and to Flanders fields Marble crosses are all that a war really yields. My eye's are wet the tear drops never dry As I stand at look at shell holes and wonder why All the young men had to come here to die. Shouldn't people in all nations drop their heads and cry? In 1914 the young men came running from city and farm When they heard the King,cry the alarm. When they went into action the first time at Verdun Out of their trenchs,through the wire they started to run Across no mans land to the hated Hun The machine guns cut them down, Everyone. At Flanders fields where now Poppies grow A hundred thousand men stood and faced the foe. It was at Ypres the great battle began Across that terrible field brave English boys ran The Hun knew the War departments plan Their guns struck down the Regiments man by man. Then in nineteen fifteen at the terrible battle of Neuve Chapelle This time poison gas made the soldiers life a hell. From all of the British Empire the fighting men came To be swept away in this horrible game. How many thousand crosses bear their name How many more did this war cripple and maim. From all the Empire came young men to help in the fight They knew the Hun was wrong and we are right. That Kaiser Wilhelm the German leader went too far When his army marched through the Ruhr. But millions of British lads have had the esprit de corps To stand up and say, It is the end never again will there be a war. ~Elmer Ake~ |