POPPY THREAD

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2003-11-11 05:32pm

Erm... for some reason, my first post didn't show...

THE GREEN FIELDS OF FRANCE
(Eric Bogle)

How do you do, young Willie McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here, by your grave side
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done
I see by your grave stone your were only nineteen,
When joined the great fallen in 1915
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean,
Or Willie McBride was it slow and obscene

Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the dead 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 enshrined
Although you died back in 1915,
In some faithful heart are you forever nineteen
Or are you stranger without even a name,
Enclosed there forever behind a glass pane
In an old photograph torn, battered and stained,
Fading to yellow in a brown leather frame
Chorus

Willie McBride I can't help wonder why,
Did all those that died there, know why they died
Did they believe when they answered the call,
Did they really believe that the war would end war
For the sorrow, the suffering, the glory the pain,
The killing and dying were all done in vain
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again and again, and again and again
Chorus

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France,
There's warm summer's breeze makes the red poppies dance
The trenches are vanished, long under the plow,
There's no gas, there's no barbed wire, no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard, it's still no man's land,
A thousand white crosses, in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
And a whole generation butchered and damned
Chorus

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-11-11 05:41pm

I don't know if this is appropriate or not (don't care much for the Christian lyrics), but I like it:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
As ye deal with My condemners, so with you My grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free;
While God is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave;
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of wrong His slave,
Our God is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-11-11 05:57pm

I suppose I should say something inspirational, but nothing comes to mind.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2003-11-12 07:00pm

Anthem for Doomed Youth ~Wilfred Owen 1893-1918

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
-Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2003-11-16 09:53am

...........

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-11-16 10:17am

Wait for me, Konstanin Simonov

Wait for me, and I'll return
Only wait very hard
Wait when you are filled with sorrow...
Wait in the sweltering heat
Wait when the others have stopped waiting,
Forgetting their yesterdays.
Wait even when from afar no letters come to you
Wait even when others are tired of waiting...
And when friends sit around the fire,
Drinking to my memory,
Wait, and do not hurry to drink to my memory too.
Wait. For I'll return,defying every death.
And let those who do not wait say that I was lucky.
They will never understand that in the midst of death,
You with you waiting saved me.
Only you and I know how I survived.
It's because you waited, as no one else did.

Majin Gojira · Post by **Majin Gojira** » 2003-11-16 11:04am

Post by **haas mark** » 2003-11-25 04:56am

Since I am just now seeing this...

-bows head-

~ver

Grand Moff Yenchin · Post by **Grand Moff Yenchin** » 2003-11-25 05:34am

To the Loyal.

...

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2003-11-25 08:57pm

.......

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-11-25 10:22pm

Reguardless of whom you fought fow, weather you wanted to or not. Were you rich or poor it matters not. Were you a soldier, were you a partisan, you gave your life and put it in harms way. I will never know you but I thank you just the same.[/i]

Tosho · Post by **Tosho** » 2003-11-27 09:08am

Shadow WarChief · Post by **Shadow WarChief** » 2003-11-30 02:08am

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2003-12-18 03:33am

His eyes, they closed, and his last breath spoke,
He had seen all to be seen.

A life, once full, now an empty vase,
Wilt the blossoms on his early grave.

Walk away me boy, walk away me boy,
By mornin' we'll be free.

Wipe the golden tear,
from your mother dear...

AND RAISE WHAT'S LEFT OF THE FLAG FOR ME.[/i]

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » 2003-12-18 04:01pm

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-12-18 04:15pm

One of the Best WWI ghost songs that the Irish have ever produced.

Danny Boy wrote:Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the roses falling.
It's you, it's you, it's you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow,
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow,
Yes, I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow,
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

But when you come, and all the flowers are dying
If I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find rhe place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.

And I shall hear tho' soft you tread above me
And all my breath shall be warm and sweeter be
For you will bend and tell me that you love me
And I will sleep in peace until you come for me.

Again, not judgemental but basically the one going off to war saying to the one staying behiend "I will be with you"

Bob McDob · Post by **Bob McDob** » 2003-12-20 07:02am

I never know what to do in these threads, it seems kind of strange ... and yet ...

...

Bob McDob · Post by **Bob McDob** » 2003-12-21 07:54pm

"The Dying Volunteer" (1861)
(of the 6th Massachusetts Regiment)
Compos'd & Dedicated to the
Volunteers of the 6th Massachusetts Regt.
by G. Gumpert
Arranged for the Piano
by F. Losse

--------
The Father of this dying volunteer fell in the Battle for his
country, the Son followed his footsteps, leaving his wife and
only child, to defend his Country's flag: he was killed at the riot
in Baltimore, April the 19th 1861. The last words he breathed were
"All hail the Stars and Stripes"!!!

1.
Farewell my child,
Farewell my wife,
The bugle sound I hear;
It calls me to the bloody strife,
It calls the volunteer.
It calls me to the bloody strife,
It calls the volunteer.
All hail to the Stars and Stripes!

Care for my boy, and when I die,
Beneath that starry flag,
Oh! watch him with a mother's eye,
His courage will not lag.
All hail to the Stars and Stripes!

2.
My father died on freedom's field,
I promis'd on his knee,
That I would fight and never yield,
Until our land was free.
That I would fight and never yield,
Until our land was free.
All hail to the Stars and Stripes!

The hero left his home and went,
To serve his fatherland,
The noble, brave Sixth regiment,
He joined with heart and hand.
All hail to the Stars and Stripes!

3.
He was the first, whose blood was spill'd,
By traitors' hands he died;
His country's love his bosom fill'd,
And dying still he cried;
His country's love his bosom fill'd,
And dying still he cried:
All hail the Stars and Stripes!

Oh! Massachussets' noble son
May laurels crown thy grave,
Thy country's freedom must be won.
The Union still we'll save.
All hail the Stars and Stripes!

Symmetry · Post by **Symmetry** » 2003-12-26 11:51am

RadiO · Post by **RadiO** » 2003-12-29 01:29pm

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-02-04 12:45pm

*Sings the Battle Hymn of the Republic.*

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2004-03-24 08:16pm

Here's one from the Civil War:

HALF a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Charge," was the captain's cry;
Their's not to reason why,
Their's not to make reply,
Their's but to do and die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred. 10

2.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well;
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.

3.

Flash'd all their sabres bare, 20
Flash'd all at once in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Fiercely the line they broke;
Strong was the sabre-stroke:
Making an army reel
Shaken and sundere'd.
Then they rode back, but not, 30
Not the six hundred.

4.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
They that had struck so well
Rode thro' the jaws of Death,
Half a league back again,
Up from the mouth of Hell, 40
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

5.

Honour the brave and bold!
Long shall the tale be told,
Yea, when our babes are old--
How they rode onward.

Awe-inspiring

I'd especially like to mention both my grandfather and granduncle.The former was a gunner on a destroyer in the Pacific, and he wrote about his run-ins with kamikaze Japanese pilots and how frightening they were! The latter was in the first wave on Normandy on D-Day, and was saved from a chest shot by a spoon he had from breakfast in his left breast pocket.

Post by **fgalkin** » 2004-03-24 08:21pm

Actually, that is "the Charge of the Light Brigade" by Tennison, and its is about the Crimean War.

Having said that, my grandparents on my mother's side fought in WWII. My grandmother was a telephone operator on an AA batery on the Road of Life, and my grandfather, I don't really know what he did since he died before I was born, and my grandma was in no condition to talk about it by the time I became interested in the subject (she was wounded in the head, and it gave her all kinds of problems in the end).

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2004-03-25 01:44am

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-06-06 03:27am

Special 40th aniversary post, too all you folks that are still over in Normandy France, your sacrifice is not in vein.

we miiss and honour you.