A Square Dance

In Flanders fields in Northern France
They're all doing a brand new dance
It makes you happy and out of breath
And it's called the Dance of Death

Everybody stands in line
Everybody's feeling fine
We're all going to hop
1 - 2 - 3 and over the top

It's the dance designed to thrill
It's the mustard gas guadrille
A dance for men - girls have no say in it
For your partner is a bayonet

See how the dancers sway and run
To the rhythm of the gun
Swing your partner dos-y-doed
All around the shells explode

Honour your partner form a square
Smell the burning in the air
Over the barbed wire kicking high
Men like shirts hung out to dry

If you fall that's no disgrace
Someone else will take your place
'Old soldiers never die. . .'
. . .Only young ones

In Flanders fields where mortars blaze
They're all going the latest craze
Khaki dancers out of breath
Doing the glorious Dance of Death
Doing the glorious (clap, clap) Dance of Death.

Roger McGough (b. 1937)