Gareth Jones Songs

THE LINES OF THE FOREST

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The lines of the forest are constructed of stone,

They lie in the earth, eternally alone.

Their name, if they have one, is written in words;

Read by the people and bleached, bleached by the birds.

 

They died in the mud of the hospital floor,

Comrades in arms and now victims of war.

Young men who were in the prime of their lives,

Leaving young women who might never,

Might never be wives.

 

The lines stretch forever over the fields

Where millions died to protect you and me.

I hope politicians and generals learn well

And stop us returning to this, to this kind of hell.

 

And a mother is kneeling bent over a grave

She has internal tears for the child that she laid.

With military honours, a carriage and guns

Draped with the flag and the battles he’d won.

But the guns they are empty, the bullets are gone;

They are reserved for the mother’s,

For the mother’s next son.

 

The lines of the forest are just like a wall;

Here, in the evening, we remember them all.

I’m sure that we know we’ll remain in their debt;

In all future wars we must never, must never forget.