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Well how do you do, young Willie McBride,
do you mind if I sit here down by your
graveside
and rest for a while neath the warm summers sun
I’ve been walking all day and I’m nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
when you joined the great fallen in 1916
I hope you died
well and I hope you died clean
or young Willie McBride was it slow and obscene
Did they beat the drum slowly
did they play the fyffe lowly
did they sound
the death march
as they lowered you down
did the band play the last post and chorus
did the pipes play
the flowers of the forest
Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
in some faithful heart is your
memory entwined
although you died back in 1916
in that faithful heart are you still nineteen
or are you
a soldier without even a name
enclosed and forever behind the glass frame
in an old photograph torn
battered and stained
and faded to yellow neath a brown letter frame
Did they beat the drum slowly
did they play the fyffe lowly
did they sound
the death march
as they lowered you down
did the band play the last post and chorus
did the pipes play
the flowers of the forest
The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
there's a warm summers
breeze it makes the red poppies dance
and look how the sun shines from under the clouds
there's no gas no
barbed wire there's no guns firing now
but here in this graveyard it's still no man’s land
the countless
white crosses stand mute in the sand
to man’s blind indifference to his fellow man
to a whole generation
that lie butchered and damned
Did they beat the drum slowly
did they play the fyffe lowly
did they sound
the death march
as they lowered you down
did the band play the last post and chorus
did the pipes play
the flowers of the forest
Yet Willie McBride I can't help wonder why
do those that lie here know why did
they die
or did they believe that this war would end wars
the sorrow the suffering the blood and the pain
the killing the dying was all done in vain
for young Willie McBride it all happened again
and again and
again and again and again
Did they beat the drum slowly
did they play the fyffe lowly
did they sound
the death march
as they lowered you down
did the band play the last post and chorus
did the pipes play
the flowers of the forest |
