Well, how do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the dead heroes in 1915,
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1915,
To that faithful heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Enshrined forever behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
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 under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who was butchered and damned.
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
And I can't help but wonder, now Willie McBride,
Do all those who 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, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
Monday, November 11, 2013
Liam Clancy - Green Fields Of France
Americans really do not understand the full horror of this day. They do not have a folk tradition that causes them to tremble a little inside, from hushed stories told to them when they were small. You can get the full measure of that here.
Well done, thanks BP!
ReplyDeletePeople forget that LotR was written to try to express some of these very sentiments, and that Conan was written to explore the next generation looking back on it (it being WWI).
ReplyDeleteOne of the commenters hit the nail on the head though with this statement
"WWI entirely reshaped the British population, WWII cemented the deal. For two generations the men who were psychologically, culturally, and historically the people who are the volunteer core of the professional military were killed. Never mind the impact on Europe as a whole."
There are arguments out there that the WW1 happened to the US in the Civil War. (Politics and such aside for the reasoning,it still sent men to the slaughter. In much a similar way.) However yes, WW1 Did reshape the population that did not happen entirely with the US Civil War. It happened in Europe twice over. And we can see much of the failed policies of all sorts as a direct descendant of such. This does tie in to your previous post that this day for the commonwealth is a day of remembrance unlike the US Holiday.
ReplyDeleteAnd a nod to you,at least from what Ive been able to glean from historical records, the US put many of the French and English Generals up in arms because we did not want to fight their war on their terms. Even if our own intelligence was willing to hamstring us to keep our items out of the English, French and German inventories.