LA COLOMBE



Why all these bugles crying for squads of young men drilled

To kill and to be killed and waiting by this train

Why the orders loud and hoarse, why the engine's groaning cough

As it strains to drag us off into the holocaust

Why crowds who sing and cry and shout and fling us flowers

And trade their right for ours to murder and to die



The dove has torn her wings so no more songs of love

We are not here to sing, we're here to kill the dove



Why has this moment come when childhood has to die

When hope shrinks to a sigh and speech into a drum

Why are they pale and still, young boys trained overnight

Conscripts forced to fight and dressed in grey to kill

These rain clouds massing tight, this trainload battle bound

This moving burial ground sent thundering toward the night



Why statues towering brave above the last defeat

Old word and lies repeat across the new made grave

Why the same still birth that victory always brought

These hoards of glory bought by men with mouths of earth

Dead ash without a spark where cities glittered bright

For guns probe every light and crush it in the dark



And why your face undone with jagged lines of tears

That gave in those first years all peace I ever won

Your body in the gloom, the platform fading back

Your shadow on the track, a flower on a tomb

And why these days ahead when I must let you cry

And live prepared to die as if our love were dead



@war @soldier @love

by Alasdair Clayre

recorded by Judy Collins

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