Classic Poem

Along the road in the evening the brown battalions wind,
With the trenches' threat of death before, the peaceful homes behind;
And luck is with you or luck is not as the ticket of fate is drawn,
The boys go up to the trench at dusk, but who will come back at dawn?

The winds come soft of an evening o'er the fields of golden grain,
The good sharp scythes will cut the corn ere we come back again;
The village girls will tend the grain and mill the Autumn yield
While we go forth to other work upon another field.

They'll cook the big brown Flemish loaves and tend the oven fire,
And while they do the daily toil of barn and bench and byre
They'll think of hearty fellows gone and sigh for them in vain—
The billet boys, the London lads who won't come back again.