A Christmas Truce

Pale winter’s sun with her sweet dwindling light, To bed crept she to hide her weary face, Whilst fell around her darkness bleak as space. What madness might have met the fateful sight, But for one faint and gentle spec of white? A single flake of snow with God’s good...

A Piece Of Mud

A piece of mud! A piece of mud! One hundred yards across that flood, ‘Boys that’s our goal, the end’, they say, ‘Our flag will fly from there today’. A piece of mud! A piece of mud! A gentle hill, worth nothing much, A tomb where several thousand sleep, A place where...

Hunting In Winter

When out one night a-hunting in the midst of winter’s deep, I thought I saw a nightingale soft crying in his sleep, Why do you cry sweet nightingale? Why touch the silent nights, With songs of dreadful sadness? What know you of foreign fights? On that same night...

The Rising Of The Sun

First light and is the night swift sent from sky to back of mind, Forgotten timeless hours spent, awake, though eyes were blind, Behind the clouds the sun peaks out an arm to turn the ruse, First light’s a poet’s marvel; it’s the budding wordsmith’s muse. The waking...

The Soldier And The General

In time’s careful, steady stretching, where long hours slowly pass, The privates line their little trenches, dreaming of the past, How far it feels, the taste of home, that lingers in their breast, So hard each time to bring to mind, when tired eyes close to rest. How...