The Tommie's Lot

While general’s drink their claret wine, In taverns far behind the lines The English tommy spills another wine On Flanders table, made from mothers pride In front of guns in faltered stride The sweet wine of youth seeps away, Dragging dreams of tomorrows men Into broken hearts, to be remembered by she. A vintage lost to you and me And, when autumns harvest came The tommy was the crop, The Somme and Verdun is where life was stopped And when winter froze the ground The tommy slept, with reaper sound Content to die with enemies damned, Caressed by yesterday’s ghosts in this Flanders land When loved ones sent letters from home The tommy bore silent pain, alone For tears are for lovers, and kisses for wives Now replaced by the tears of loss And boys too young to find love, Their first kiss that of the bullet For they were not too young to die. Though “mother”, was often their last dying cry Now the guns are silent And the fields are green, The marble cross, the epitaph to nightmares dream In death the axis and Allies are equal, In life, we failed to stop the sequel, So remember that cross and remember these lads Remember the wives and remember the dads Rest in peace our brave tommy lads.