The last reluctant hero
by cricketjeff on August 6, 2009. © Jeff Green, All rights reserved
His nightmares are now memories no more.
The scenes he lived, too terrible to say,
A tiny slice of that unholy war;
The last reluctant hero’s slipped away.
When Harry Patch was sent to Passchendaele,
With friends and neighbours marching by his side,
They knew they were an army doomed to fail;
About three hundred thousand young men died.
For eighty years he never told a soul,
Of pain and death no man should ever see.
Reluctantly again he played a roll,
A second fight for peace and liberty.
A man of peace who fought that dreadful war,
Now Harry Patch will have to fight no more.
Author notes
The last man to have fought in the trenches of the Western Front, Harry Patch,
was buried today.
English