D-Day 6th June 1944 - Lest We Forget

Why do you still march old man,
With medals on your chest?
Why do you still grieve old man,
For those friends you laid to rest?
Why do your eyes gleam old man,
When you hear the bugles blow?
Tell me why you cry old man,
About those days so long ago?

I'll tell you why i march young man,
With medals on my chest,
I'll tell you why i grieve young man,
For those i laid to rest,
Through misty fields of gossamer silk,
Come visions of distant times,
When boys of tender age lost lives,
And all their mothers pined.
We buried them in a blanket shroud,
Their young flesh scorched and blackened,
In a communal grave, newly gouged,
In bloodstained gorse and bracken.

And you ask me why i march young man,
I march to remind you all,
That but for those apple blossom youths,
You'd never have known freedom at all.


Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) - English poet

"If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England. There shall be in that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven".
("The Soldier" - 1914)