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It was the summer - August 4
When England joined the First World War
1914 the very year
Before wives and children shed their bitter tears

‘The war to end wars’ was the battle cry
Before there had been one widow’s sigh
The men lined up by the score
To enlist, sacrifice themselves to this bitter war

Friends and families made their mark
Pals regiments were formed in town and park
From factories, clubs, offices and farms 
They became privates, sergeants, men at arms

And off they went through the streets
Not knowing that they were cannon meat
Cheered and applauded as they marched
Toward war’s verdant fields not yet parched

“It’ll be over by Christmas” came the call
“Get over there one and all”
No one of them, home or abroad
Had ever heard of “Total War”

Posters beckoned from every wall
Poets wrote of war’s enthrall
Songs and stories came thick and fast
Glorifying war and our heroic past

But very soon came the acrid truth
Millions dead - “Anthem of Doomed Youth”
Trial by ordeal and fire and zeal
A generation gone through war’s sharp steel

The sombre, bitter, vile death-calls
Quickly killed the tunes of the music halls
Wounded, dead, disfigured men
Many mutilated beyond any ken

At the end it was all for naught
That carnage in each battle fought
Kings deposed and Empires lost
But the worst thing was the human cost

One hundred years to this very day
Like then we shake our heads and say
Still in wars our sons and daughters die
To all that is holy, why? oh why?

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