The diggers looked around
As they marched over the ground
Of the Menin Gate at Ieper town
And their chiseled names shone brightly down
When they passed through the arch of glory
As the nightly bugle sung their story
They were laying across the battlefields
Still holding ground they refused to yield
And will be forever with their mates
As they stand together while they wait
And we will honour them too
Knowing their deeds and daring-do.
© Paul Warren Poetry
Categories:
ieper, remembrance day, war, world
Form: Dramatic Verse
Two lonely bugles play
As they have done on other days
Echoing around the Menin Gate
32000 times since those days of hate
Ieper on the Western Front
Fed the troops into the Great War brunt
But there are only names on walls
All who answered their countries call
And the lonely bugles still play
At the end of every day
As ghostly soldiers march through the gate
Their names on the walls we contemplate.
© Paul Warren Poetry
The bugles played at the Menin Gate at Ieper in Belgium for the 32,000 th time. Lest we forget
Categories:
ieper, remember, war, , western,
Form: Elegy
It was a bright cold sunny morning
The mist lifted without warning
As we walked through the cemetery gate
It had been nearly a hundred years wait
Outside of the Ieper Menin Gate
We had come to honour you, mate
About a kilometre down the Menin road
You marched this way with your pack and rifle load
But counter battery fire had put paid to you
When you died with your mates too
And you lay so long asleep
With now a promise we did finally keep
To visit you from Australia the Great Southern land
Keeping a family promise made long ago without demand
Honouring a fallen Digger lying far from his home
In Belgium's sacred soil
"Good on you, cobber" you've finished your earthly toils.
Categories:
ieper, remember, world war i,
Form: Ballad
At Ieper in Belgium there is Bloomfield's Cathedral Arch
Through the town's cobbled streets we did proudly march
For all British Nations troops who were garrisoned here
In the Great War we stood our bravery so sincere
We 55,000 who died our face to a foe bravely met
There were no graves for us so please don't forget
We are not missing we are all here with no rank division
You will see us all at midnight in Longstaff's ghostly vision
Visit at each dusk while the bugle weeps for us
Know who we were and what we did those days a must
Remember all and let our sacrifice be well considered
For to end the war to end all wars was our hope undelivered.
© Paul Warren Poetry
Categories:
ieper, world war i,
Form: Ballad