Well, how do you do, young William McBride
\nDo you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
\nAnd rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
\nI’ve been walking all day, and I’m nearly done.
\nAnd I see from your gravestone, you were only nineteen
\nWhen you joined the great fallen in nineteen sixteen
\nWell, I hope you died quick, and I hope you died clean,
\nOr Willie McBride was it slow and obscene?<\/p>\n
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
\nDid they play the death march, as they lowered you down?
\nDid the band play ‘The Last Post and Chorus’?
\nDid the pipes play ‘The Flowers of the Forest’?<\/p><\/blockquote>\nAnd did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind,
\nIn some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
\nAnd, though you died back in nineteen sixteen,
\nTo that loyal heart, you’re forever nineteen?
\nOr are you a stranger without even a name,
\nForever enshrined behind some old glass pane,
\nIn an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
\nAnd faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?<\/p>\nDid they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
\nDid they play the death march, as they lowered you down?
\nDid the band play ‘The Last Post and Chorus’?
\nDid the pipes play ‘The Flowers of the Forest’?<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe sun’s shining down on these green fields of France;
\nThe warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
\nThe trenches have vanished long under the plow,
\nNo gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
\nBut here in this graveyard that’s still No Man’s Land,
\nThe countless white crosses in mute witness stand
\nTo man’s blind indifference to his fellow man,
\nAnd a whole generation lies butchered and damned<\/p>\nDid they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
\nDid they play the death march, as they lowered you down?
\nDid the band play ‘The Last Post and Chorus’?
\nDid the pipes play ‘The Flowers of the Forest’?<\/p><\/blockquote>\nAnd I can’t help but wonder, now Willie McBride,
\nDo all those who lie here know why they died?
\nDid you really believe them when they told you The Cause?
\nDid you really believe that this war would end wars?
\nWell the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
\nThe killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
\nFor Willie McBride, it all happened again.
\nAnd again, and again, and again, and again.<\/p>\nDid they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
\nDid they play the death march, as they lowered you down?
\nDid the band play ‘The Last Post and Chorus’?
\nDid the pipes play ‘The Flowers of the Forest’?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well, how do you do, young 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. And I see from your gravestone, you were only nineteen When you joined the great fallen in …
Continue reading Green Fields of France<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-3483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3483"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fkeyring_services&post=3483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}