THE ROWERS
The boat house is all empty
The young men gone away
Leaving only old men at
The boathouse
But no crews to row the boats
Out on the tideway
Week by week they join
The fallen as is the way
Of war
Because it is the young men
And the fit men
That won’t return to row out
In the mornings or evenings
Or at the weekends any more
Favoured oars are exchanged
For weapons
The shells they gather dust
While they who were crews
Of their generation fight
On in the bloody filth of war
Because duty says they must
Set forth a wreath of poppies
Where the river runs on
Straight and true
And let us remember those
Who were once the rowers
Of a generation until that is
Their world was cleaved
And cut right on through
By Kevin Pyne
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