A Canadian Soldier-Good Poems

[2ndChoiceName]

I know I'm resurrecting a dead thread, but there's got to be more poems out there!

I've got one, which specifically refers to the US cavalry, but could still apply:

Halfway down the trail to Hell,
In a shady meadow green
Are the Souls of all dead troopers camped,
Near a good old-time canteen.
And this eternal resting place
Is known as Fiddlers' Green.
Marching past, straight through to Hell
The Infantry are seen.
Accompanied by the Engineers,
Artillery and Marines,
For none but the shades of Cavalrymen
Dismount at Fiddlers' Green.
Though some go curving down the trail
To seek a warmer scene.
No trooper ever gets to Hell
Ere he's emptied his canteen.
And so rides back to drink again
With friends at Fiddlers' Green.
And so when man and horse go down
Beneath a saber keen,
Or in a roaring charge of fierce melee
You stop a bullet clean,
And the hostiles come to get your scalp,
Just empty your canteen,
And put your pistol to your head
And go to Fiddlers' Green.

 

[leroi]

Captain T.A. Girling of the 'Canadian Army Veterinary Corps' written in 1916 from somewhere in Ypres:

Dumb Heroes

There's a D.S.O. for the Colonel,
A Military Cross for the Sub,
A medal or two when we all get through
And a bottle of wine with our grub.

There's a stripe of gold for the wounded,
A rest by the bright seashore,
And a service is read when we bury our dead
Then our country has one hero more.

But what of our poor dumb heroes
That we send without choice to the fight,
That strain at the load on the shell swept road
As they take up their rations at night.

They are shelling on Hell Fire Corner.
Their shrapnel fast bursts o'er the square.
And the bullets drum as the transports come
With the food for the soldiers there.
It's the daily work of the horses.
And they answer the spur and the rein
With quickened breath mid the toll of death
In the mud and the holes and the rain.

But they walk with the spirit of heroes.
They care not for medals or cross
But for duty alone into perils unknown
They go never counting the loss.

They're shell-shocked, they're bruised and they're broken,
They're wounded and torn as they fall,
But they're true and they're brave to the very grave
And in silence they're heroes all through.

Author Bio: http://twgpp.org/information.php?id=2923232

 

[2ndChoiceName]

Original poem by me, written for an english class assignment. It is loosely based off an experience I had at a Remembrance Day ceremony while I was still in Cadets.

The Soldier

Cold November wind whips at my face.
My jacket threatens to open.
I stand watching,
As they lay wreaths upon the granite.

From the crowd comes a man,
Short, and old, with eyes steely grey.
He wears a beret upon his head,
And his chest adorned with medals.
Earned in blood years ago,
They now wink at me in the morning sun.
And from his beret,
An arched cat bares its teeth in an eternal hiss

He steps to the monument.
He seems in awe as he gazes up.

He lays the wreath and steps back.
Then, a call from an unheard Sergeant-Major:
He snaps to attention.
A wrinkled hand flies to a wrinkled brow,
And his lips form words I cannot hear.
For they are not meant for us.

I know not where this man has been,
Nor what he has done.

But I know this:
He is a soldier, now and forever.