Well how do you do young Willie McBride
Do you mind if i sit here down by your grave side
And rest for a while beneath the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day and i'm nearly done
i see by your grave stone you were only nineteen
When you join the great falling in nineteen sixteen
I hope you died well and i hope you died clean
Or young Willie McBride was it slow and obscene
Did they beat the drum slowly
Did they play the fine flowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest
Did you leave a wife or a sweet heart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory in shrine
Although you died back in nineteen sixteen
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed and forever behind the glass frame
In an old photograph torned battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame
Did they beat the drum slowly
Did the play the fine flowly
Did they play the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest
The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
There is a warm summer breeze it makes the red poppies dance
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There is no gas,no barbed wire, there is no gun firing now
But here in this grave yard its still no-man's land
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned
Did they beat the drum slowly
Did they play the fine flowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the last post and chorus
Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest
Ah young Willie McBride i cant help wonder why
Do those that lie here know why you didn't die
And did they belive when they answere
