MacGill served in the 1st Battalion London Irish Rifles at the battle of Loos in September 1915 as a stretcher-bearer. He was wounded in the hand and never returned to the front. I'm not a big fan of poetry, much less war poetry, but I enjoy his style.
Now
when we take the cobbled road we often took before,
Our
thoughts are with the hearty lads who tread that way no more.
Oh
! boys upon the level fields, if you could call to mind
The
wine of Café Pierre le Blanc, you wouldn't stay behind.
But
when we leave the trench at night and stagger ‘neath our load,
Grey,
silent ghosts as light as air come with us down the road.
And
when we sit us down to drink you sit beside us too,
And
drink at Café Pierre le Blanc as once you used to do.
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