The Green Fields of France
Well how do you do private William Mcbride,
Do you mind if i sit here down by your graveside ?
and rest for a while in the warm summer sun ,
I've been walking all day, and i'm nearly done.
I can see by your gravestone you were only 19
when you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
well, I hope you died quick and i hope you died clean
or Willie Mcbride, was it slow and obscene ?
*chorus*
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the pipes lowly ?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down ?
Did the bugles sound the last post in chorus ?
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest ?
Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
in some loyal heart is your memory enshrined ?
and though you died back in 1916,
to that loyal heart are you forever 19 ?
or are you a stranger without even a name,
forever encased behind some glass pane,
in an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
and fading to yellow in a brown leather frame ?
The sun,s shining down on these green fields of France,
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance,
The trenches have vanished now under the plow,
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now,
but here in this graveyard it's still No Mans Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
to man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
and a whole generation who were buchered and damned.
And i can't help but wonder now Willie Mcbride,
Do all those that lie here know why they died,
Did you really believe them when they told you "The cause"?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars ?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie Mcbride its all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.
____________________________________
Live thou for Britain
For many have died for thee !
