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| MEN of the Twenty-first | |
| Up by the Chalk Pit Wood, | |
| Weak with our wounds and our thirst, | |
| Wanting our sleep and our food, | |
| After a day and a night— | 5 |
| God, shall we ever forget! | |
| Beaten and broke in the fight, | |
| But sticking it—sticking it yet. | |
| Trying to hold the line, | |
| Fainting and spent and done, | 10 |
| Always the thud and the whine, | |
| Always the yell of the Hun! | |
| Northumberland, Lancaster, York, | |
| Durham and Somerset, | |
| Fighting alone, worn to the bone, | 15 |
| But sticking it—sticking it yet. | |
| |
| Never a message of hope! | |
| Never a word of cheer! | |
| Fronting Hill 70’s shell-swept slope, | |
| With the dull dead plain in our rear. | 20 |
| Always the whine of the shell, | |
| Always the roar of its burst, | |
| Always the tortures of hell, | |
| As waiting and wincing we cursed | |
| Our luck and the guns and the Boche, | 25 |
| When our Corporal shouted, “Stand to!” | |
| And I heard some one cry, “Clear the front for the Guards!” | |
| And the Guards came through. | |
| |
| Our throats they were parched and hot, | |
| But Lord, if you’d heard the cheers! | 30 |
| Irish and Welsh and Scot, | |
| Coldstream and Grenadiers. | |
| Two brigades, if you please, | |
| Dressing as straight as a hem, | |
| We—we were down on our knees, | 35 |
| Praying for us and for them? | |
| Lord, I could speak for a week, | |
| But how could you understand! | |
| How should your cheeks be wet, | |
| Such feelin’s don’t come to you. | 40 |
| But when can me or my mates forget, | |
| When the Guards came through? | |
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| “Five yards left extend!” | |
| It passed from rank to rank. | |
| Line after line with never a bend, | 45 |
| And a touch of the London swank. | |
| A trifle of swank and dash, | |
| Cool as a home parade, | |
| Twinkle and glitter and flash, | |
| Flinching never a shade, | 50 |
| With the shrapnel right in their face | |
| Doing their Hyde Park stunt, | |
| Keeping their swing at an easy pace, | |
| Arms at the trail, eyes front! | |
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| Man, it was great to see! | 55 |
| Man, it was fine to do! | |
| It’s a cot and a hospital ward for me, | |
| But I’ll tell ’em in Blighty, wherever I be, | |
| How the Guards came through. | |
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