Well, how do you do, Private William McBride. Do you mind if I sit down here by your grave side? I'll rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun. I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done. I see by your grave stone you were only nineteen When you joined the dead heroes of nineteen-sixteen. I hope you died well, and I hope you died clean. Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene? Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they sound the fife lowly? Did the bugle play o'er you 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 enshrined? Although you died back in nineteen sixteen, In somebody's heart, are you forever nineteen? Or are you a stranger without even a name? Enclosed 'til forever behind a glass frame? In an old photograph, torn, tattered, and stained, And faded to yellow, to forever remain? The sun, now, it shines on the green fields of France. There's a warm summer breeze, 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 graveyeard, 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 were butchered and damned. I can't help but wonder, young Willie McBride: Do all those who lie here know why they died? And did they believe when they answered the cause Did they really believe that this war would end wars? Well, the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain, The killing, the dying - it was all done in vain. Young Willie McBride, it all happened again and again and again and again and again.
Reason for writing:
It's such a beautiful song, I thought I'd share it with y'all.
Birth sign: Aquarius
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