No Man’s Land/ William McBride

Well, how do you do, Private William McBride?
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun?
I’ve been walkin’ all day, and I’m nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the brave fallen in 1916.
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean,
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o’er you as they lowered you down?
Did the band play, “The Last Post”, in 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?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you always 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o’er you as they lowered you down?
Did the band play, “The Last Post”, in chorus?
Did the pipes play, “The Flowers of the Forest”?

The sun’s shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that’s still No Man’s Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man,
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o’er you as they lowered you down?
Did the band play, “The Last Post”, in chorus?
Did the pipes play, “The Flowers of the Forest”?

And I can’t help but wonder now, Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you “The Cause”?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well, the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing, the dying, was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o’er you as they lowered you down?
Did the band play, “The Last Post”, in chorus?
Did the pipes play, “The Flowers of the Forest”?