On the Idle Hill of Summer
On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.
Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.
East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again.
Far the calling bugles hollo,
High the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow:
Woman bore me, I will rise.
poem by Alfred Edward Housman
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Related quotes
The Soldiers Return
(bell/clarke)
Slow the years go by
They stole your man off to war
Will you see the child
As you sing battle songs
And it pains me
To think of the soldiers plight
I will pray
For your heart to guide you home
And she cries for the soldiers return
Despair of feeling alone for so long
By the light of the candle that burns
For his life
For the day of the soldiers return
Hear the cannon fire
Lost voices echo in the night
See the spoils of war
Young men are falling, ooh
Hear the drummer marching oer the hill
Love returning and the graves of the battle lie still
And she cries...(chorus)
Hear the drummer marching oer the hill
Love returning and the graves of the battle lie still
And she cries...(chorus)
Young men are falling, young men are falling...
song performed by by Erasure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Soldiers Return
*****Erasure Lyrics*****
*****Version 1.0*****
Albums and B-Sides
-Painstakingly compiled and transcribed by John Setlik
([email protected]) with much help from Vidar Hanssen and Wes Hsu
-Source of lyrics indicated for each album or song
-Please do not re-distribute for commercial purposes
-The Soldiers Return- (transcribed by VH)
Slow the years go by
They stole your man off to war
Will you see the child
As you sing a better song
And it pains me
To think the soldiers
I will pray
For you've gone to guide you home
chorus:
And she cried for the soldiers return
Despair of feeling alone for so long
By the light of a candle that burns
For his life for the day of the soldiers return
Hear the cannons fire
Lost voices echo in the night
See the spoils of war
Young men are falling, ooh
Hear the drummer
Marching over the hill
Love returning
The graves of the battle lies still
chorus
Hear the drummer
Marching over the hill
Love returning
And the graves of the battle lies still
chorus
song performed by by Erasure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Winds Out of the West Land Blow
The winds out of the west land blow,
My friends have breathed them there;
Warm with the blood of lads I know
Comes east the sighing air.
It fanned their temples, filled their lungs,
Scattered their forelocks free;
My friends made words of it with tongues
That talk no more to me.
Their voices, dying as they fly,
Thick on the wind are sown;
The names of men blow soundless by,
My fellows' and my own.
Oh lads, at home I heard you plain,
But here your speech is still,
And down the sighing wind in vain
You hollo from the hill.
The wind and I, we both were there,
But neither long abode;
Now through the friendless world we fare
And sigh upon the road.
poem by Alfred Edward Housman
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A Blooming Shame
Still fields of scarlet poppies blow
on long abandoned battle fields.
The bones of dead men hid below
will feed their roots increasing yields.
The few survivors are now all dead.
Rejoined the comrades that they knew.
So we remember in their stead.
The many who salute the few.
Now Patch is dead he was the last
veteran who survived the war
A living relic from the past
who lived a hundred years and more.
There�s no one left who can recall
the muddy trenches and the gas.
The pain of seeing comrades fall.
He watched the long years slowly pass.
He never sought publicity.
He was a very private man
but became a celebrity
The last surviving veteran.
Each year the scarlet poppies grow
On Flanders Fields abundantly
The countless dead who lie below
Have earned their place in history.
By foolish useless sacrifice
They gave their lives to end all war
I think they paid to high a price.
The world is as it was before.
Men are still killing other men
but now much more efficiently
Each year we fail to learn again
the lessons taught by history.
There are no winners in a war.
There never was nor will there be.
But men will fight for evermore.
It�s human nature seemingly.
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Ohio
Tin soldiers and nixon coming,
Were finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in ohio.
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Tin soldiers and nixon coming,
Were finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in ohio.
song performed by by Neil Young
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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West End Girls
(....forever)
Sometimes youre better off dead
Theres gun in your hand and its pointing at your head
You think youre mad, too unstable
Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables
In a restaurant in a west end town
Call the police, theres a madman around
Running down underground to a dive bar
In a west end town
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
West end girls
Too many shadows, whispering voices
Faces on posters, too many choices
If, when, why, what?
How much have you got?
Have you got it, do you get it, if so, how often?
And which do you choose, a hard or soft option?
(how much do you need? )
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
West end girls
West end girls
(how much do you need? )
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
Oooh west end town, a dead end world
East end boys, west end girls
West end girls
Youve got a heart of glass or a heart of stone
Just you wait till I get you home
Weve got no future, weve got no past
Here today, built to last
In every city, in every nation
From lake geneva to the finland station
(how far have you been? )
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
A west end town, a dead end world
East end boys, west end girls
West end girls
West end girls
West end girls
(how far have you been? )
Girls
East end boys
And west end girls
And west end girls
And west end girls
East end boys
The west end girls
The west end boys
And west end girls
The west end girls
The west end boys
The west end girls
song performed by by Pet Shop Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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License To Thrill
Breath of life
For which a man must grieve
Blood of love
Into my heart
Tonight well dream
A license to thrill
Ill sing you on girl
Ill make you high world
Lovers turn again to dreams
Oh tonight
A license to thrill
I hear voices
Screaming louder
Seem to break a spell
Watcha gonna do
I hear voices
Singing louder
Oh yeah oh yeah
Breathe tonight
And slowly come down
Into my heart
Tonight well dream
A license to thrill
Oh sleeper
Yes, restless dreamer,
She comes, face her
Untie your lips
Ill turn you on girl
You make me high world
Turn again to dreams
Untie your hips
And with
Animal grace
Embrace her
Oh the taste
A license to thrill
I hear voices
Screaming louder
Seem to break a spell
Watcha gonna do
I hear voices
Screaming louder
Sing a farewell
Watcha gonna do
I hear voices
Screaming louder
Screaming louder into the night
Try to break a spell
I say yeah
Sing a last farewell
Watcha gonna do
Ill sing you on girl
Ill make you high
A license to thrill
song performed by by Billy Idol
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The New Recruit
The lads were once my comrades,
They stay at home content.
And now's the time of cricket,
They count the days well spent.
They walk with girls o' Sundays,
All in their Sunday clothes;
And of a Sunday evening
Go where good liquor flows.
Their way's no longer my way,
For I must follow now
The drum-tap and the bugle,
While they're for shop and plough.
Good-bye, good-bye, kind people,
And all I leave behind,
To girls that used to kiss me,
To one was never kind.
Good-bye, my girl unwilling,
I shall not vex you sore,
For I have taken the shilling
And I come home no more.
I heard the drums a-drumming,
And I ran out to see;
The soldiers and the fighting,
They mattered nought to me.
Good-bye, my girl that grieved me.
The bugles whistled, Come.
And I, -- stepped in the roadway
And marched beside the drum.
Lord, I was proud, uplifted.
I held my head so high;
And all the girls were doating
With love as we went by!
The boys who stood and jeered me
May live to three-score-ten,
While I'm cut down at morning
Among the fighting men.
But Lord, the people shouting!
The glory tasted sweet,
And the eyes of the girls all doating
As we marched down the street.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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I Shall Return
I shall return again; I shall return
To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes
At golden noon the forest fires burn,
Wafting their blue-black smoke to sapphire skies.
I shall return to loiter by the streams
That bathe the brown blades of the bending grasses,
And realize once more my thousand dreams
Of waters rushing down the mountain passes.
I shall return to hear the fiddle and fife
Of village dances, dear delicious tunes
That stir the hidden depths of native life,
Stray melodies of dim remembered runes.
I shall return, I shall return again,
To ease my mind of long, long years of pain.
poem by Claude McKay
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Come Ye Home
Listening (said the old, grey Digger) . . .
With my finger on the trigger
I was listening in the trenches on a dark night long ago,
And a lull came in the fighting,
Save a sudden gun-flash lighting
Some black verge. And I fell thinking of lost mates I used to know.
Listening, waiting, stern watch keeping,
I heard little whispers creeping
In from where, 'mid fair fields tortured, No-man's land loomed out before.
And well I knew good mates were lying
There, grim-faced and death-defying,
In that filth and noisome litter and the horror that was war.
List'ning so, a mood came o'er me;
And 'twas like a vision bore me
To a deeper, lonelier darkness where the souls of dead men roam;
Where they wander, strife unheading;
And I heard a wistful pleading
Down the lanes where lost men journey: 'Come ye home! Ah, come ye home!'
'Ye who fail, yet triumph failing'
Ye who fall, yet falling soar
Into realms where, brother hailing
Brother, bids farewell to war;
Ye for whom this red hell ended,
With the last great, shuddering breath.
In the mute, uncomprehended,
Dreamful dignity of death;
Back to your own land's sweet breast
Come ye home, lads - home to rest.'
Listening in my old bush shanty
(Said grey Digger) living's scanty
These dark days for won-out soldiers and I'd not the luck of some
But from out the ether coming
I could hear a vast crowd's humming
Hear the singing, then - the Silence. And I knew the Hour had come.
Listening, silent as I waited,
And the picture recreated,
I could see the kneeling thousands by the Shrine's approaches there.
Then, above those heads low-bending,
Like an orison ascending,
Saw a multitude's great yearning rise into the quivering air.
Listening so, again the seeming
Of a vision came; and dreaming
There, I saw from out high Heaven spread above the great Shrine's dome,
From the wide skies overarching
I beheld battalions marching -
Mates of mine! My comrades, singing: Coming home! Coming home!
'We who bore the cost of glory,
We who paid the price of peace,
Now that, from this earth, war's story
Shall, please God, for ever cease,
To this Shrine that you have lifted
For a symbol and a sign
Of men's hearts, come we who drifted
Thro' long years, oh, mates of mine!
To earth, my brothers' grieving blest
Now come we home, lads - home to rest.'
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Company
Some can see its poetry
Come as you are in your broken car
The company
Carousel is wishing well
As a wonder night that spoke delight
To the company
Can you hear the summer calling you
Can you hear him call you now
Can you hear the summer calling you
Can you hear him call you now
Broken dream, just a token scheme
Silver man with a telegram
For the company
Scalding blue, come talk to you
Search the cave for the grave
Of the company
Can you hear the summer calling you
Can you hear him call you now
Can you hear the summer calling you
Can you hear him call you now
Can you hear the summer calling you
Can you hear him call you now
Can you hear the summer calling you
Can you hear him call you now
Can you hear the summer calling you
Can you hear him call you now
Can you hear the summer calling you
Can you hear him call you now
song performed by by America
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Rise & Fall
These are the streets I used to walk
On summer nights, sit out and talk
Thats the house where I used to live
I remember what I would give.
This is the town I wont forget
And after anger theres nothing left
Walking now round and round
Familiar sights are open ground.
Being here again
I can recall
Forgotten moments
The rise and fall.
We used to live where children play
They leave their homes a mile away
To come and stand in trees and grass
Where we once walked the memories last.
Being here again
I can recall
Forgotten moments
The rise and fall.
The sun shines east, the sun shines west
But I know where the sun shines best
Casey street in the afternoon
Once again its over too soon.
Being here again
I can recall
Forgotten moments
The rise and fall.
Being here again
I can recall
Forgotten moments
The rise and fall.
Rise
(rise)
(rise)
Rise and fall
Rise and fall
song performed by by Madness
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Rise & Fall
These are the streets I used to walk
On summer nights, sit out and talk
Thats the house where I used to live
I remember what I would give.
This is the town I wont forget
And after anger theres nothing left
Walking now round and round
Familiar sights are open ground.
Being here again
I can recall
Forgotten moments
The rise and fall.
We used to live where children play
They leave their homes a mile away
To come and stand in trees and grass
Where we once walked the memories last.
Being here again
I can recall
Forgotten moments
The rise and fall.
The sun shines east, the sun shines west
But I know where the sun shines best
Casey street in the afternoon
Once again its over too soon.
Being here again
I can recall
Forgotten moments
The rise and fall.
Being here again
I can recall
Forgotten moments
The rise and fall.
Rise
(rise)
(rise)
Rise and fall
Rise and fall
song performed by by Madness
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Rise And Fall
(McPherson/Foreman)
These are the streets I used to walk
On summer nights, sit out and talk
That's the house where I used to live
I remember what I would give.
This is the town I won't forget
And after anger there's nothing left
Walking now round and round
Familiar sights are open ground.
Being here again
I can recall
Forgotten moments
The rise and fall.
We used to live where children play
They leave their homes a mile away
To come and stand in trees and grass
Where we once walked the memories last.
Being here again
I can recall
Forgotten moments
The rise and fall.
The sun shines east, the sun shines west
But I know where the sun shines best
Casey street in the afternoon
Once again it's over too soon.
Being here again
I can recall
Forgotten moments
The rise and fall.
Being here again
I can recall
Forgotten moments
The rise and fall.
Rise
(Rise)
(Rise)
Rise and fall
Rise and fall
song performed by by Madness
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Eulogy To A Hell Of A Dame
some dogs who sleep At night
must dream of bones
and I remember your bones
in flesh
and best
in that dark green dress
and those high-heeled bright
black shoes,
you always cursed when you drank,
your hair coming down you
wanted to explode out of
what was holding you:
rotten memories of a
rotten
past, and
you finally got
out
by dying,
leaving me with the
rotten
present;
you've been dead
28 years
yet I remember you
better than any of
the rest;
you were the only one
who understood
the futility of the
arrangement of
life;
all the others were only
displeased with
trivial segments,
carped
nonsensically about
nonsense;
Jane, you were
killed by
knowing too much.
here's a drink
to your bones
that
this dog
still
dreams about.
poem by Charles Bukowski
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Dirge For Two Veterans
THE last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finish'd Sabbath,
On the pavement here--and there beyond, it is looking,
Down a new-made double grave.
Lo! the moon ascending!
Up from the east, the silvery round moon;
Beautiful over the house tops, ghastly phantom moon;
Immense and silent moon.
I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles; 10
All the channels of the city streets they're flooding,
As with voices and with tears.
I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring;
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
Strikes me through and through.
For the son is brought with the father;
In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell;
Two veterans, son and father, dropt together,
And the double grave awaits them. 20
Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive;
And the day-light o'er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.
In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin'd;
('Tis some mother's large, transparent face,
In heaven brighter growing.)
O strong dead-march, you please me!
O moon immense, with your silvery face you soothe me! 30
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans, passing to burial!
What I have I also give you.
The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music;
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love.
poem by Walt Whitman
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The Call
I hear an Army!
Millions of men coming up from the edge of the world,
The ring of unnumbered feet ever louder and louder
Comes on and an like a mighty untameable tide,
Steady, implacable, out of the North and the South,
Out of the East, and the West, they answer the call
Of her who stands, her eyes towards God and the stars,
Liberty, daughter of God, calling her men.
What manner of men are these? Like the desert sands
Uncounted, many as locusts, darkening the sky?
White men, black men, men of the tawny gold,
Golden-eyed like the lion, sons of the sun,
Men from the snow, their eyes like frost or a sword:
They have but one heart, one desire, they run one way.
Hurrying, hurrying to the shrill trumpet call.
Men from the ice-floes, men from the jungles come;
This from the arms of his bride, that from his dead.
Men from the plough, the mart, the mill and the street
They run: they are heroes: the fire fuses them all.
Head uplifted and proud, like heroes they step,
Singing their battle song in the troubled dawn
Of the day of Liberty, flaming torch of the world.
I hear an Army!
poem by Katharine Tynan
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Good Ground
After driving all night Daddy stopped the car
Said, "Wake up kids, here we are
This is our new home"
From that Oldsmobile all I could see
Was an ocean of fields out in front of me
It just rolled on, on and on
Daddy crossed the fence and he knelt down
Filled his hands with rich farmland and said
"This is good ground"
I had it all underneath my feet
There was room to grow - there was time to breathe
And dreams stretched high under summer skies
This is where I'm from - this is who I am
Down these roads I became a man
And they're calling me - where my roots run deep
Deep down - this is good ground
Mama had me diggin' in her flower bed
There it was an arrowhead
And all I wanted to be, was Cherokee
Seasons change and childhood goes
I laid down my homemade bow for a brown-eyed girl
She changed my world
I learned to drive so we could ride around
We made the sweetest memories in it
On good ground
I had it all underneath my feet
There was room to grow - there was time to breathe
And dreams stretched high under summer skies
This is where I'm from - this is who I am
Down these roads I became a man
And they're calling me where my roots run deep
Deep down - this is good ground
I drove all night then I stopped the car
Said, "Wake up kids, here we are
This is our new home
It's been too long"
Crossed that fence and I knelt down
Said, "Everybody gather 'round
Hold out your hands, this is good ground"
You've got it all underneath your feet
There's room to grow - there's time to breathe
And dreams stretch high under summer skies
This is where I'm from - this is who I am
Down these roads I became a man
And they're calling me where my roots run deep
Deep down - this is good ground
song performed by by John Michael Montgomery
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Last Post
THE day's high work is over and done,
And these no more will need the sun:
Blow, you bugles of England, blow!
These are gone where all must go,
Mightily gone from the field they won.
So in the workaday wear of battle,
Touched to glory with God's own red,
Bear we our chosen to their bed!
Settle them lovingly where they fell,
In that good lap they loved so well;
And, their deliveries to the dear Lord said,
And the last desperate volleys ranged and sped,
Blow, you bugles of England, blow,
Over the camps of her beaten foe --
Blow glory and pity to the victor Mother,
Sad, O sad in her sacrificial dead!
Labour, and love, and strife, and mirth,
They gave their part in this kindly earth --
Blow, you bugles of England, blow!
That her Name as a sun among stars might glow,
Till the dusk of time, with honour and worth:
That stung by lust and the pain of battle,
The One Race ever might starkly spread,
And the One Flag eagle it overhead!
In a rapture of wrath and faith and pride,
Thus they felt it, and thus they died;
So to the Maker of homes, to the Giver of bread,
For whose dear sake their triumphing souls they shed,
Blow, you bugles of England, blow,
Though you break the heart of her beaten foe,
Glory and praise to the everlasting Mother,
Glory and peace to her lovely and faithful dead!
poem by William Ernest Henley
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Sunrise, Sunset
O Sun, When you rise,
It’s morning dawn.
When you set,
It’s evening dusk.
O Sun, Seeing your beauty lighting
Shining on landscape from dawn
Shining on seascape from dusk
It comes from dawn to dusk.
O Sun, rise from East
O Sun, set to West
From East to West,
Celestial light comes and go,
Seasons come and go.
Here come four seasons
North to South, East to West
From Spring comes Autumn,
From Summer comes Winter.
O Sun, From rising East
To setting West
O Moon, Come rising East
To setting West
Cycle never end,
It’s endless cycle,
Seeing sunset every dusk,
Seeing sunrise every dawn.
Making us pondering..
Make us wondering
Where, When will be next..
Sunrise, sunset..
poem by Lawrence Hiung
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