Anthem for Doomed Youth

Writers and Literature of The Great War, 1914-1918

All the hills and vales along
Earth is bursting into song,
And the singers are the chaps
Who are going to die perhaps.

On, marching men, on
To the gates of death with song.
Sow your gladness for earth's reaping,
So you may be glad, though sleeping.
Strew your gladness on earth's bed,
So be merry, so be dead.

Charles Sorley 1895-1915