Well, how do you do, young 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 great call-up in 1916! 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 the play the pipes lowly? and did they play the deaf march as they lowered you down? did the band plays 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 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 enshrined 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 the play the pipes lowly? and did they play the deaf march as they lowered you down? did the band plays 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 summer breeze makes the red poppies dance! and look how the sun shines from under the clouds-no gas and no barbed wire, there was no guns firing now! but here in this graveyard that's still no man's land-the countless white crosses that mute in the sand... to man's blind indifference to his fellow man and a whole generation that was butchered and damned!

Did they beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly? and did they play the deaf march as they lowered you down? did the band plays the last post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?