Well how do you do Private Willie McBride

do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside

I'll rest for a while in the warm summer sun

I've been walkin' all day lord and I'm nearly done

and I see by your gravestone you were only 19

when you joined the brave fallen in 1916

and I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean

for Willie McBride was it slow and obscene

CHORUS

Did they beat the drums slow

did they sound the fifes lowly

did the rifles fire or ye as they lowered you down

did the bugles sing the last fallstone chorus

did the pipes play the flowers of the forest.

And, did you leave the wife or the sweet heart behind

in some loyal heart is your memory enshrined

and though you died back in 1916 to that faithful heart are you always 19

or are you just a stranger without any name

forever enclosed behind some glass pane

in an old photograph torn and tattered and stained

and fading to yellow in a brown leather frame

Well the sun it shines down on these green fields of France

the warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance

the trenches have vanish now under the plow

no gas and no barbed wire and no guns firing now

but here in this graveyard it's still no man's land

and the countless white crosses in mute witness stand

to man's blind in difference to his fellow man

and the whole generation the was butchered and damned

Pvt willie McBride

and I can't help but wonder now Willie McBride

do all those who lie here know why they died

did you really believe them when they told you the cause

and did you really believe this war would end wars

for the suffering , the sorrow the glory the shame the killing the dying it was all done in vain

for Willie McBride it's all happen again ,and again,and again, and again, and again

-:Myrmidon New York

williemcbride