Guard

Guard.

As the rain it fell,
They stood in silence, sentinel,
Youth whose life barely fills a page,
For those, alas, who will never age,
Most gave their life on foreign soil,
Where cedars bleed or in Katangan dust.

The eternal flame dancing in its cage
Brings light to unknown dreams,
Draws quiet sighs from those who linger,
Visiting the grieving garden
Of bronze busts and limp half-masted flags.
All keep a fleeting vigil while our dead sleep

One fell at Derrada Wood and earned his star,
One borne away on Scuabtuinne,
One in distant hills of Taroman,
One more lost in Bantry waves,
More lost in flight on that darkest night.

Kindly pause as you pass by,
Bare your head and bow,
No need for praise or for applause,
Just remember those departed,
Please sit or kneel or wet your eye,
Pain has fled these brave at heart.

Families’ aching hearts,
As gun carriage rattles past,
Rifles bark the final retort,
To click of leather heels and clink of brass,
Mournful Last Post bugle call,
Shock and quiver as teardrops fall,
To rest on arms reversed.

By Ruairí de Barra © 2017
Updates © 2025