Рет қаралды 154
GOING OVER
By Sir Charles G. D. Roberts
A girl's voice in the night troubled my heart.
Across the roar of the guns, the crash of the shells,
Low and soft as a sigh, clearly I heard it.
Where was the broken parapet, crumbling about me?
Where my shadowy comrades, crouching expectant?
A girl's voice in the dark troubled my heart.
A dream was the ooze of the trench, the wet clay slipping,
A dream the sudden out-flare of the wide-flung Verys.
I saw but a garden of lilacs, a-flower in the dusk.
What was the sergeant saying?-I passed it along.-
Did I pass it along? I was breathing the breath of the lilacs.
For a girl's voice in the night troubled my heart.
Over! How the mud clings! Vomits red the barrage.
But I am far off in the hush of a garden of lilacs.
For a girl's voice in the night troubled my heart.
Tender and soft as a sigh, clearly I heard it.
Private William Woodward: Killed On August 8th, 1918
My Great Grand-Uncle William Woodward was killed in the first attacks on the morning of August 8th, 1918. He was stationed on the front lines around Domart-sur-la-luce in the Picardy region, southwest of Amiens. He was a member the Royal Canadian Regiment and is one of two known Royal Canadians to be buried a small cemetery southwest of Amiens.
William was born on September 4, 1891 and grew up in the small farming town of Aetna in Southern Alberta, the son of Hyrum and Mary Woodward. By my reckoning that would make him 26 years old when he died, just a month short of his 27th birthday, although his grave says he was only 24. I found his enlistment record which says he enlisted on February 4, 1915. He was 5’10 1/2” tall, with grey eyes and light brown hair. He had previously been in the Southern Alberta Militia. I suppose we would have survived several years on the front before being killed at Amiens.
His mother Mary had these fairly patriotic words written on his grave: “Born in the Last & Blest Great West of America, Died in Honour Defending God’s Truth & Justice.” I believe this is a reference to the famous slogan of Western Canada being the “Last Best West” of North America during the early days of settlement. William was Mary’s oldest son. His name appears on the Cenotaph in Cardston, Alberta and his name can also be found the the Books of Remembrance in Ottawa.
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