2018 Concert Series Gallipoli to the Somme | Page 14

Shouts back the sound of mirth,
Tramp of feet and lilt of song
Ringing all the road along.
All the music of their going,
Ringing swinging glad song-throwing,
Earth will echo still, when foot
Lies numb and voice mute.
On, marching men, on
To the gates of death with song.
Sow your gladness for earth’s reaping,
So you may be glad, though sleeping.
Strew your gladness on earth’s bed,
So be merry, so be dead.
9. Peace and War – Baritone solo. Text by Captain Spears, Fifth French
Army, August 1914, from Martin Gilbert’s The First World War: A
Complete History. Holt paperbacks, 2004:
“A dog was barking at some sheep. A girl was singing as
she walked down the lane behind us. From a little farm away
on the right came the voices and laughter of some soldiers
cooking their evening meal. Darkness grew in the far distance
as the light began to fail. Then, without a moment’s warning
. . . we saw the whole horizon burst into flames . . . A chill of
horror came over us. War suddenly seemed to have assumed
a merciless, ruthless aspect that we had not realized till then.
Hitherto it had been war as we had conceived it, hard blows,
straight dealing, but now for the first time we felt as if some
horrible Thing, utterly merciless, was advancing to grip us.”
10. Returning We Hear the Larks – Chorus. Poem by Isaac Rosenberg,
Jewish-English soldier and poet, killed in battle of Arras, 1918. From
The Collected Works of Isaac Rosenberg: Poetry, Prose, Letters,
Paintings, and Drawings, edited by Ian Parsons, Chatto & Windus, 1979.
Sombre the night is:
And, though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lurks there.
Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know
This poison-blasted track opens on our camp—
On a little safe sleep.
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