For those whose grandparents were young adults during the Great War that conflict is a source of boundless fascination. Polished brass shell-cases, faded photographs of men in uniform and cap badges from forgotten regiments decorated their parlours and led to questions, often not answered because of painful memories. This song was written shortly after a visit to Northern France to look at relics of the conflict and to try to understand it better. While I was there I became fascinated with the stories of some of the bit-part players who never left France and who were buried alongside the soldiers they had gone to support - Nurses, Clerks, Cooks, Entertainers, Missionaries and other trades, many of them, of course, women. In the great ‘Cities of the Dead’ they lie in honoured places.

 

 

The Swan floats over flooded fields, the Heron hunts the Hawthorn brake,

The winter streams have drowned the land, the green grass turned to silver lake

And through the dark and stormy days, I tend my sheep upon the hill,

And think of you, so far away, and wish that you were with me still

 

Like Severn's floods the storms of war have drowned my hopes for you and I

With deadly grace the hunters kill and lord and lowly learn to die

To serve my King and those I love, I would have gone to play my part

But the doctors saved me for the hills to nurse my over-tender heart

 

You smiled so sadly when you said though I'd remain, I'd stay alone

The carriage window framed your face, above your spotless uniform

For women too must go to war, although they face a different fight

To use their skills with broken men and help them face their fears at night

 

I'd read your letters on the hill, they told of madness, mud and pain

How tired you were, how angry with the wasted lives for little gain

Of quieter times when guns were cool and blackbirds sang though trees were gone

And how you wished to smell again a rose from Severn, by the Somme

 

I've walked through twisted woods and fields that fifty years of healing soothed

The painful harvest garnered there defies a man to stand unmoved

I've seen the grave in which you lie, my tears have washed the snowy stone

And there I left a single flower, a rose from Severn, by the Somme

 

 

Copyright © 1996 Martin Graebe