Where E’re You Walk in Foreign Fields

Where e’re you walk in foreign fields

You’re treading upon dead men

And if you go by car or coach

Upon the open road

Think of when the stukas came

Bombing refugees and soldiers

And in the ditches dead men.

Or you may seek the cleaner beach

Wherein your kids may safely bathe

And as you splodge in Norman waters

Remember the craft which carried

The already dead

Those yet alive

Tripping and slipping on the pebble shore

Staining the sand one red

You would have thought that so much blood

Would thicken this thin water

All along the strand lay dead men

Or when you take the Dunkirk ferry

Remember the human snake

That fought for footing on the turning tide

This khaki arm flung out for saving

By the small boats that ran aground

Loaded in this bloodied water

And in the dunes the dead men.

Those dead were once your dads and granddads

Or some one else’s sons and lovers

Such likely lads

O the dead men

Never forget the dead men.