A Thousand Men Are Marching By

A thousand men are marching by

A glassy stare in every eye

As they pass the sky grows red

We are not the living, but the dead.

 

Our lives were lost, taken away

Yet we all sought to live another day

Then guns and bullets toll’d our bell

And we were the ones they sent to Hell.

 

Far away, our loved ones grieve

Told by ‘patriots’ they must believe

Our sacrifice was for the cause

But the reason they’re given is ‘just because …’.

 

Our ghosts wish to see skies of blue

For me, “Dear wife, I dream of you”

It was not easy to leave for fields of battle

But you were spared the cry of my death’s rattle.

 

As the Sun sets o’er this land once more

Silence, where loud there was the cannons roar

All is peace, where before was endless noise

The guns are quiet, so let’s all rejoice.

 

What’s done is done for evermore

So never again will you open the door

To greet me as we embrace and kiss again

Because my love, you sleep alone, but with me there are a thousand men.

 

By Alistair Pope
16 April 2020

 

FILE IMAGE: Menin Gate at midnight – oil on canvas by Will Longstaff (1927). AWM ART09807

 

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