The vicar lived, a saddened life,

Very early he lost his wife,

And though one child from this was born,

He was so sickly and much forlorn.

Never again would he stray,

Into the fields that before him lay,

His wife the only true love to be,

When she was gone, none other did he see.

The boy was two, when he first left,

To the fields of war, that deftly cleft,

The madness in France, abhorrent and hore,

Unspeakable France, where none knew the score.

And there he stood alone it seems,

Through unspeakable nights, and unspeakable scenes,

None could deter him, none could undo,

The lives that were lost, and the little he could do.

Four years of turmoil, four years of drought,

Where no life could grow, where no life could sprout.

And through all the darkness, he sought only light,

But man in his madness saw only spite.

And when all were exhausted and no more could fight,

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Because all the forces were depleted of life,

He rose with his rifle, his bible and chain,

And walked among those who, had died all in vain.

None did venture, among no man’s land,

Excepting the vicar and his little white hands.

A cross he would make upon each soul he found,

And none to him were, ever out of bounds.

Each side would listen and glisten with tear,

But no man lifted his rifle, and no bullet did one hear,

To all war was carnage, to all war brought doubt,

But to the vicar, his spirit, was so much more stout.

And then when the war, the Great One they said,

Had finished with victory, he counted the dead.

And each spirit he found, one mark would one find,

In the pages of diary, in the pages of his mind.

And home once more to his child of six,

The one who’s health, he never could fix,

And the boy looked upon him and forever would stay,

Quietly by his side, through night time or day.

And as age descended and both grew old,

Their life time of hardships would never be resolved.

Too quick another, too quick men did goad,

And the memories of war, began again to unfold.

The vicar stood silent and to his son again said,

I must leave once more again, to that opulent spread.

Where the crosses are plenty and so many died,

To the fields of France, and her mystic tide.

One quarter of a century, his son stood old,

But the body he was given was advanced, two fold,

He cried and long wept, on the words he was told,

But God in his mercy, received his failed hold.

To his mother he said, he would now rest in peace,

And know the love, he had once so beseeched,

Together they would wait until his final day,

But till then they would wait, and while the hours away.

To his parish he said, on that burial morn,

His son was now resting and no more forlorn,

To his mother in heaven, whom he never really knew,

And his duties now called him, towards the war which now drew.

The second of wars, much greater than the first,

Darkened the skies, with so much hurt,

And again he did wander, among death’s gripping hands,

And belittled his mockery, with his white little hands.

They say he was lost over France one night,

In a dark fire storm, in a bomber’s flight,

At the console he radioed, all was not well,

And last that was heard, was an enemy’s shell.

By his church, among the people, that all knew him well,

A little white cross bears all that one can tell,

His body lies elsewhere, only God really knows,

But his name, like many others, will ever be bestowed.

By his wife and his son, his family all told,

He resides there in heaven and not in a grave so cold,

There does he walk, as when he was young,

And never again, as a saddened picture hung.

They say in the fields, of long distant France,

A young vicar dressed, in olden day stance,

Bends down in the fields, and prays with his hands,

And then disappears, before any can advance.

They say if you dig, you will find olden bones,

Of soldiers that went, and never came home,

And when all are asked, if they could describe any way,

All one will hear is, of little hands, they say.