Poppies grew where men once fell, in fields once drenched in blood

Life goes out, in a blink, after the cannon’s thud

There they marched, line by line, doing what they thought was right

And they fell, one by one, nothing to a mortar’s might.

”To war!” they had cried, ”to war, to war!” making promises wholly hollow;

And so they went, those doomed few, food for cannon to swallow.