Off topic yep but thought I would share, I have this great old book of poems put together by an
Audrey Grealy on wartime aviation poetry called "The Sky Their Battlefield" obviously about wartime aviation I thought I would share it, one of my favorites, Lest We Forget.
Scampton Churchyard
They lie together in quiet peace
Of grassy graves, sun dappled by the trees,
The stones a little mossy with the years,
Their requiem the humming of the bees.
The English boy whose wings are folded now,
That badge hard-won in blazing shell-torn skies,
No more the cricket field, the Sunday tea,
The lazy river days, the college ties.
The young Canadian sleeps in English soil,
For him no journey home, no more he'll know
The gold and scarlet maples in the fall,
The pines and bob-sleighs in the dazzling snow,
The boy who came from far Australian shores
He made his final everlasting flight,
No more for him the golden sunlit beach,
The pounding surf, the southern cross by night.
The flier from New Zealand is at rest,
His brave young heart has flown beyond return,
Beyond the snowy mountain peaks of home,
The sparkling lakes, the geysers and the fern.
Beside them now, in mute companionship,
The German lad lies in the English loam,
His short life shattered in a foreign sky,
No more to see his family home.
We take our lives for granted - but we should
Be grateful for each day we start anew,
And think, for one small moment, of these boys
Who only reached the age of twenty-two.
DubbyFan ·