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by Dyfed Lloyd Evans

The dawn lies bleeding on muddied plains,
As midnight bells silently toll
the passing second's thunder roll
And deafening silence blankets all.
Our guns lie dormant to the rear
And Tommy in his trenches sleeps
As barracks tea in billy seeps
A hearty breakfast for the troops
Such a day to be dancing dead!

A scratching pen in darkened cell
Traces out this soldier's life
Goodbyes to children, mother, wife
the avowed day — an end to strife.
Sunlight filters through the bars
Boots are pounding on the square
The sergeant barks an order there
To assign duties, each his share
Such a day to be dancing dead!!
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Guns boom out across the Somme.
Soldiers mass in pouring rain.
In no-man's-land a lone refrain
cries out against their dying pain,
As whistles blow and up they go!
Arklights hover overhead
For snipers pointing out the dead.
Tommy trembles in his dread,
Over the top! — he failed to surge.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Justice to be dispensed, as laid down from high
“The army has no place for stricken mutineers.”
Brought to task before his military peers
No matter that the men were merely volunteers
Branded — coward — with but one outcome for his case
A capital offence, thus did his sentence read.
Hague affirmed with but one word — AGREED
The finality of ink, a death decreed
And from that day he was dancing dead.

The stomp of heels — presented arms,
The chaplain enters — no apeal,
And turns to leave, but cannot feel
the beetle crack beneath his heel.
The door swings open — all now is lost!
The air an unrepentant gloom
as guards stand duty — confine the room;
Signing his fate, sealing his doom.
On this day he'll be dancing dead.

His meal untouched on tripos stool,
As clouds wash out the sky so red
He raises slowly from the bed
and wonders at the life he'd led.
The flanking guards avert their gaze.
In duty, though, he'd never swerve.
For King and Country he did serve,
with high resolve and steady nerve
But on this day he'll be dancing dead.

The two neat ranks march out the gate,
when heavens open, thunder sound
and globs of rain do beat the ground
to drench the guard and prisoner, bound
They march him to the central post,
And take five steps, no backward glance.
Rifles retort as he does dance
his gruesome jig on field of France
And on that morn he was dancing dead.

They schemed so far behind he front,
As darkness fell to sirens wail
and guns pound out to no avail
This night, again, thy're bound to fail
Over they go, the Major's men
through the mud, over the wire
Exhausted hearts and minds do tire
dying now in bursts of fire
The reaper's need once more is fed.
For in the dark, they were dancing dead