Poem about Remembrance

[Bob Chandler]

Hello all,

I'm not much of a poetry person but a line in a poem I heard recently really registered with me. I can't for the life of me remember the exact words so I can't google it but the gist is that for all we know, when we remember the dead they may in some small way be conscious of it, or know in some shadowy way that they are being remembered....does anyone know this?

Cheers

Bob

[kevmc]

Hello all,

I'm not much of a poetry person but a line in a poem I heard recently really registered with me. I can't for the life of me remember the exact words so I can't google it but the gist is that for all we know, when we remember the dead they may in some small way be conscious of it, or know in some shadowy way that they are being remembered....does anyone know this?

Cheers

Bob

Hello Bob

Was it this one?

I half awoke to a strange new calm

And a sleep that would not clear

For this was the sleep to cure all harm

And which freezes all from fear.

Shot had come from left and right

With shrapnel, shell and flame

And turned my sunlit days to night

Where now none would call my name.

Years passed me by as I waited,

Missed the generations yet to come,

Sadly knew I would not be fated

To be a father, hold a son.

I heard again the sounds of war

When twenty years of sleep had gone,

For five long years, maybe more,

Till peace once more at last had come.

More years passed, new voices came,

The stones and trenches to explore,

But no-one ever called my name

So I wished and waited ever more.

Each time I thought, perhaps, perhaps,

Perhaps this time they must call me,

But they only called for other chaps,

No-one ever called to set me free.

Through years of lonely vigil kept,

To look for me they never came,

None ever searched or even wept,

Nobody stayed to speak my name.

Until that summer day I heard

Some voices soft and strained with tears,

Then I knew that they had come

To roll away those wasted years.

Their hearts felt out to hold me,

Made me whole like other men,

But they had come just me to see,

Drawing me back home with them.

Now I am at peace and free to roam

Where 'ere my family speak my name,

That day my soul was called back home

For on that day my family came.

Lest We Forget

By Michael Edwards

It was the subject of a recent topic. I warn you that there are some members who are determined to undermine anyone who has an emotional reaction to a poem which in their view is of an inferior standard. It is to be hoped that they don't do the same with this and hijack it for their own desire to display an intellectual superiority in such matters.

Look at http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=170936&view=findpost&p=1661858&hl=&fromsearch=1

Kevin