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  • The Green Grass
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The Green Grass

Joseph Lee

The dead spake together last night,
And one to the other said:
‘Why are we dead?’

They turned them face to face about
In the place where they were laid:
‘Why are we dead?’

‘This is the sweet, sweet month o’ May,
And the grass is green o’erhead –
Why are we dead?

‘The grass grows green on the long, long tracks
That I shall never tread –
Why are we dead?

‘The lamp shines like the glow-worm spark,
From the bield where I was bred –
Why am I dead?

The other spake: ‘I’ve wife and weans,
Yet I lie in this waesome bed –
Why am I dead?

‘O, I hae wife and weans at hame,
And they clamour loud for bread –
Why am I dead?’

Quoth the first: ‘I have a sweet, sweetheart,
And this night we should hae wed –
Why am I dead?

‘And I can see another man
Will mate her in my stead,
Now I am dead.’

They turned them back to back about
In the grave where they were laid –
‘Why are we dead?’

‘I mind o’ a field, a foughten field,
Where the bluid ran routh and red
Now I am dead.’

‘I mind o’ a field, a stricken field,
And a waeful wound that bled –
Now I am dead.’

They turned them on their backs again,
As when their souls had sped,
And nothing further said.

………………………………….

The dead spake together last night,
And each to the other said,
‘Why are we dead?’

Joseph Lee


Joseph Lee

from Ballads of Battle (London: John Murray, 1916)

Reproduced by permission of the University of Dundee Archives

Tags:

death in battle questions soldiers spring the dead World War I
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Joseph Lee1876 - 1949

Dundee-born Joseph Lee was a poet, journalist, artist and traveller, whose poems and sketches gave the world a glimpse of life in the trenches and prison camps of the First World War.
More about Joseph Lee

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