A Pardon Stands & Here Lies A Soldier

A Pardon Stands

 

A pardon! Say again, a pardon stands,

For those that died at their own country’s hands,

For those who fell at dawn in distant lands,

For those forgotten few, a pardon stands.

 

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Here Lies A Soldier

 

There used to be no writing on this slate,

It was a marble ghost, 

Devoid of all but name, and date,

It held no comfort for its host.

 

A pardon comes, thank God,

But half a hundred years too late,

For all who cared,

For all who grieved alone.

 

They did not live to see the world awake,

They did not watch the mountains shake,

They did not hear the trumpets sound,

They did not feel the earth resound.

 

Theirs was a lifetime spent in public scorn,

Too oft’ afraid their loss to mourn,

Lest others, thinking not, their grief  upset,

Cowards chanting ‘coward.’

 

How sad they never read the writing on the slate,

An honour now, to add to name, and date,

A proof of what they’d known before,

Etched out in stone for ever more,

Just seven words and nothing more,

 

‘Here lies a soldier of the War.’