Reflections {Ongoing}

A Field in France

Dedicated to Leontine_Willow a wonderful and skilled poet. Please check out her poems!
The song above goes with this poem; it is absolutely beautiful.

The guns thundered endlessly,

Pitting holes all over the ground;

Yet that was a few years ago

And now this grassy hill utters no sound

That is akin to the terror

That once sounded here long ago

As soldiers on both sides

Died in trying to defeat the foe.

Yet in this grassy, peaceful land

Where red poppies dance in the breeze,

Once, men were cruelly butchered

That other nations might be free.

Upon this green hill

Where birds twitter in the trees,

Once cacophony reigned

And there was never a moment of peace.

Then the ground shook

With the rumbles of artillery

While men charged again and again

Only to be slaughtered brutally.

This place, then, was not green

But an ugly, muddy colour

While men's blood poured out

As in their death throes they suffered.

Pain! Death! And all for what?

What reason is there in this gory?

Many of them might have asked,

Gone from them dreams of glory

As they only tried to stay alive

In this hell-wrought ruin

That in their worse dreams never imagined

Could be this terrible destruction.

Silence, here, it never was

Nor was peace to be found

In this place accursed by all

Where endlessly was heard the sounds

Of men dying, bleeding in agony

As the gun thundered incessantly

And their victims' screams rent the air,

A hellish combination frightening.

Now, there is no noise

That is akin to the terror raged then

As they fought and died

To set free captive nations.

Here, the sun shines warmly

And the poppies dance in the breeze

As no sound disturbs the sacred silence

Save the birds up in the trees.

If you look out, you will see

There, on the plain where so many died,

Which is now grown over with grass

Thousands of white crosses lie;

The only thing remaining

As a reminder of what happened here

Where men fought and died

In endless agony of fear.

Yet if one is very still,

One can hear them crying out;

In the silence of their deaths,

One might still hear them shout:

'Have we died unsung, unhonoured?

Our graves here lie unnumbered.

Did we give our all, our lives even,

For a fruitless war fought in vain?'

Though wars may come again,

And it is certain they will,

No, they did not die in vain.

We shall always remember this sacred hill

That marks their final resting place,

A peaceful cemetery

Instead of a war-torn plain.

That all will remember eternally.