Rememberance Sunday

The cold November wind blows leaves and old remembering men Down the canyon of Whitehall.

"Ben’s Salome bell the world to silence calls, `til distant guns,

Echoes ofanother time, take up the dirge.

Old men with tearful eyes stride by with scarlet wreath.

"In many a town and village, around the granite cross

Are gathered ageing mourners, remembering their loss.

"And did those other Whitehall men feel no guilt or shame,

To send young men in thousands out, to kill and to be maimed?

"Like lemmings they went forth to clear the cliffs of death,

 And with them took another nation’s sons.

"Yet still the madness is not cured, though all the faiths agree,

 We do not heed our God’s command: Thou shalt not kill for me.

Grieve at the going down of the sun and in the morning remember -"But have we learnt, oh! have we learnt, the lessons of November?

  ©Arthur F Mylam.