This poem was written on 19n October 2006
Within Abbey’s hushed walls
Where once men peaceably trod
To calmly contemplate
The wisdom of God,
There is a remembrance
Of a sage who lived in troubled years,
Who recorded foolish acts
And honest fears.
In an alien land
Away from Salop’s sky,
A scribe recorded
Man’s reluctance to die.
In the midst of
Mustard gas and Woodbines,
Tales of trenches give lie
To Horatian lines.
The bomb blasts of battle,
The crying of men
And the outrageous orders
Were subjects for his pen.
In pictures of ink,
Humanity’s hideous crimes
Were in the raw revealed
For future times.
No balm known to man
Can cure his ceaseless sleep
As his mortal shell
A foreign field shall keep.
The eleventh hour was near
And his journey home was booked
When the scythe of bullets
His spirit took.
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