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A sweeter spot you'll never find,
where river winds its way
between the banks, with willows lined,
designed, it seems, for play.
The village boys all laugh and shout;
they leap and dive and splash about.
All care is banished, put to rout,
in fun throughout the day.
I'd wandered there, with book in hand -
you'll understand my need;
a quiet spell in wonderland,
I'd planned to sit and read.
Their laughter echoed through the glen,
and drowned the songs of lark and wren.
It turned my thoughts to other men,
for whom my pen must bleed.
The pride of village life, the cream,
the future's gleam, the bud.
They too had swum this lovely stream -
the dream before the flood.
Then called to settle some old score,
they marched off to a foreign shore;
a generation lost to war...
they died in gore and mud.
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