In fifty years, when peace outshines <br />Remembrance of the battle lines, <br />Adventurous lads will sigh and cast <br />Proud looks upon the plundered past. <br />On summer morn or winter's night, <br />Their hearts will kindle for the fight, <br />Reading a snatch of soldier-song, <br />Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong; <br />And through the angry marching rhymes <br />Of blind regret and haggard mirth, <br />They'll envy us the dazzling times <br />When sacrifice absolved our earth. <br /> <br />Some ancient man with silver locks <br />Will lift his weary face to say: <br />'War was a fiend who stopped our clocks <br />Although we met him grim and gay.' <br />And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive, <br />Marvelling that any came alive <br />Out of the shambles that men built <br />And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt. <br />But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance, <br />Will think, 'Poor grandad's day is done.' <br />And dream of lads who fought in France <br />And lived in time to share the fun.<br /><br />Siegfried Sassoon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/song-books-of-the-war/
