Green Fields of France

Well
how do you do private Willie Mc Bride Do you
mind if I sit here down by your grave side and
rest for a while neath the warm summer sun I've been
walking all day and I'm nearly done I
see by your gravestone you were only nine teen When you
joined the great fallen in nine-teen six -teen I
hope you died quick and I hope you died clean Or
Willie Mc Bride was it slow and ob -scene did they

beat the drum slowly did they sound the fife lowly Did the
rifles fire oer ye as they lowered you down Did the
bugles sing the last post and chorus Did the
pipes play the Flowers of the For -est

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart be -hind?
In some faithful heart is your memory en -shrined? And
though you died back in nine-teen six -teen In
that loyal heart are you al ways nine -teen? Or
are you a stranger without ev-en a name
Forever en closed be -hind some glass pane In an
old pho-to graph torn and tattered and stained And
fading to yellow in a brown leather frame? did they...

Well the sun's shining now on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance.
The trenches are vanished long under the plough
No gas and no barbed wire no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it is 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.

And I can't help but wonder now Willie McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did they really believe when they answered the call?
Did they really believe that this war would end war?
the suffering the sorrow the glory the shame -
The killing the dying it was all done in vain.
For Willie McBride it all happened again
And again and again and again and again.