Marching With Ghosts
Marching, marching, the living and the dead
Arm in arm down cobbles boot-worn smooth
From services of sombre remembrance
To memorials of bronze and emblazoned marble.
The pipes, the pipes and all the fallen pipers
Lead as men once did to battle and to war.
Then home again to cheers and speeches
Ringing hollow, echoing cries
From battlefields consecrated with the blood
Leading ghost battalions that are no more
Of fallen comrades, now no more than ghosts.
Marching once more together in memory,
Past faces bright with innocence
That cannot know the horror, that utter grief.
They parade with their ghostly companions
Of those days when they were young and bright
Now old and withered with those at their side
Who cannot fade with time.
