Woods in May are made
For straying with sweethearts on
Winding paths with flowers between trees
Blue sky singing through branches overhead
And small clouds like birds perched on the canopy
Of leaves, green, deep light; and to come out
And look over evening fields towards home

Woods were never intended
For the death song of machine-guns
Whine and ping of bullets
Barbed wire like brambles
Obscene blossoms of orange and smoke

Woods were never intended
For cacophony of hell, making your ears ring
Never for noise and shouting guns profaning
Nature’s cathedral silence.
Never for blood, bone and dead.

Nature does not want woods
Cut through with trenches, roots exposed
In time, it will take back the lost ground
In marches of endless stealth, surrounding,
Infilling, greening, and burying rusted metal
So only farmers and archaeologists see it

Until one year birds return, eventually
Green spray decks shattered fallen trunks
Spring follows spring; autumn ploughs in shrapnel
And new lovers will pass that way again
Hand in hand, after many years
All hate that ended lives forgotten
For now, until the next time.

Young men, forsake the waving of banners
And the braying of statesmen; speeches,
Fine words that turned laughter to slaughter;
For all that it leads to is the lowering of flags
The sound of sorry bugles and
The sadness of what might have been, and
All that it leads to is names carved in marble
Bronze oakleaves, poppies nodding in the breeze
And days you never spent with those you loved,


Young men, build barns, get in the harvest
And drink your beer and cider,
sing rustic songs.

Young men, stay home; cherish and love your sweethearts.

[Oppy Wood, near Arras, was the scene of a particularly bloody engagement on 3rd May 1917 when the Hull Pals' battalions were thrown into the attack against heavily-defended German strongpoints in a fortified wood which overlooked British positions to the west of the commune of Oppy. Their attack was repulsed, with heavy casualties, and also many men were taken prisoner. The painting of Oppy Wood is the famous one by John Nash, RA, the War Artist]