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One Hundred Years On
One hundred years on
Since that Declaration of War
In scope and effect
Greater than any gone before.
Massed gravestones
Pristine ranks of white
In their serried tidy files
A truly humbling sight;
A constant reminder
For those who want to see
The price they paid for
Peoples' continuing liberty.
The flags will fly at half mast
And the crocodiles tears shed
And all the world's current leaders
Stand with bared and bowed head,
But would they then
With a stroke of pen
Send our troops
Off to war again.
No lessons learned
From millions that died
Patriotic martyrs
From both sides.
There are no survivors now
To tell the horrors they faced,
To tell first hand of
The carnage and the waste,
No more tales over pints
From pub snug room benches
Just the words of the poets
Written from the trenches.
Leaders once
Led their men
Now they command
By stroke of pen,
Ypres, Oppy Wood,
The Somme
Names remembered still
One hundred years on.
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One Hundred Years On
One Hundred Years On