I stood in the shadow of that historic Tower

Before a rain-drenched sea of red

The glistening ceramic poppies like a shower

Washing clean wrongs and lives long since dead.

 

From out of the gloom marched a Warder

(With a young guardsman bugler in tow)

Who soon called the living to order

And read out the names we would know.

 

We were witnesses to the sort of weather

Surely known by those named who had died

In the mud and their misery wondering whether

They'd ever return home on the tide.

 

Then I heard the name I was there for,

Like a clarion call down the years,

Her lost brother my late mother had cared for

When she was fourteen and learning about tears.

 

"Ernest Valentine Venner - The Rifle Brigade"

Second lieutenant - twenty six - known as 'Nick' "

- At Delville Wood in 1916, duty's price was paid

I just hope to God it was mercifully quick!

 

Now he lies at peace not that far away

From the scene of his young life's last wave,

Among so many comrades who perished that day

Each at rest in a lovingly kept grave.

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