A Thousand Strong...

       A THOUSAND strong,
       With laugh and song,
To charge the guns or line a trench,
       We marched away
       One August day,
And fought beside the gallant French.

       A thousand strong,
       But not for long;
Some lie entombed in Belgian clay;
       Some torn by shell
       Lie, where they fell,
Beneath the turf of La Bassée.

       But yet at night,
       When to the fight
Eager from camp and trench we throng,
       Our comrades dead
       March at our head,
And still we charge, a thousand strong!

This poem is reproduced from Punch, 3rd February 1915.
Image:  http://www.stevelewis.me.uk/page14.php