A Soldier's Request

This piece of land I call my own One day shall be overgrown But one thing that is always shown Is that people here are free Lavender scent fills the air People laughing everwhere Old frenchmen sitting on the stairs These things just need to be Wander close and hear the sounds There are birds and insects all around But, we are all beneath the ground And these we will not see I lie beneath the sunlit sky For this place is where I did die For me I ask that you not cry I died for my country Birds are flying overhead Beneath their flight lay we the dead The ground was once stained deep blood red From here you smell the sea When I was here the sky was black You could not see each new attack We'd take one hill, they'd take in back I was only twenty three My medals are not on my chest They're home, I hope like all the rest I died but did fulfill my quest I made these people free I will not age forever more I will not make it twenty four But where I lay, there's ten score more Who believed the same as me I came to France in Wintertime The battlefield was mud and slime The beauty gone, it was a crime There's not much here to see Our crosses stand and mark our place No photographs to show our face We died with honor and with grace Please say a prayer for me Just boys we were when we arrived It's sad that most did not survive We gave our souls, we gave our lives So this world could be free I remember though one Christmas Day The war was stopped so we could play I wish it could remain this way We had no enemy So, here I lie beneath the earth My life is what your freedoms worth My tale is one but there's a dearth Of others here like me But now I just enjoy the view The birds above and folks like you Will keep my story, fresh, anew Just please...remember me. .

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