Burnley Great War Poets

Epitaph (not Premonition)

by T H Quarmby

If on the fields of blighted France
My bones in death are fully thrown
Moan not my misfortunes cruel chance
Nor for my sake emit one moan.

View in my death, the proudest price
That I for freedoms sake shall give
And smiling, pay the sacrifice
So that our, English freedom live.

Deem not, tho’ laid in barren earth
Perchance beneath some barren stone
I would exchange my stricken turf
For some grass grave with fair flowers strewn.

Is this not England, where her sons
In thousands find their last long rest?
So in the sound of growling guns
Oh, let me lie with England’s best.

Here men will meet in future years
To pay their homage to the slain
And they shall smile mid sorrowing
And cry “They have not died in vain”

So fate, if ‘tis fated my lot
Out here to meet man’s destined end
Equal to any English plot
This soil of France will be my friend.

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