Seager, Alexandrine – September, 1916
Back
The daring dashing gallantry of lad we loved, now dead,
We see through ever dimming mists of tears –
The glory and the glamour, the fierce joy of seeing red,
Will be handed down in hist’ry through the years
Their honour’s safe for ever, and they’re sleeping sound afar
On Turkish hills by the Egean Sea;
In Egypt, France of Belgium, or wheree’er our heroes are,
They have written ‘Finis’ – aye, and gloriously
But ah! for those who must live on, nerve-wrecked by bursting shell,
Through all the weary years that stretch ahead –
When the glamour faint has faded, and there’s little left to tell
Of the glory that was theirs in days long dead
A little chap who’s back again is talking to us now –
When he left he looked so gallant and so gay;
It’s hard to recognise the laughing lad we used to know
in the listless man who’s talking here today.
…
He’s done his bit? That numbing pain –
that thing he can’t forget
Done? Well, he knows its ‘done’ when life is too
But what of ours? For we are faced with an eternal debt.
To him and other like him. Ours is Do!
