Did they beat the drums slowly Did they sound the fife lowly Did the rifles fire o'er you As they lowered you down Did the bugles sing the Last Post and Chorus Did the pipes play The Floo'ers of the Forest
Well how d'you do Private William MacBride Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside I'll rest for a while in the warm summer sun I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done I can see by your gravestone you were only nineteen When you joined the glorious fallen in nineteen-sixteen Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean Or Willie MacBride was it slow and obscene
Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined And though you died back in nineteen-sixteen To that loyal heart are you always nineteen 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
The sun's shining now on these green fields of France The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance The trenches have vanished long under the plough No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now But here in this graveyard it'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 that were butchered and damned
And I can't help but wonder now Willie MacBride 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 it was all done in vain For Willie MacBride it all happened again And again and again and again and againTeksty umieszczone na naszej stronie są własnością wytwórni, wykonawców, osób mających do nich prawa.
