On the idle hill of summer
Sleepy with the flow of streams
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams
Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by
Dear to friends and food for powder
Soldiers marching, all to die
East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again
Far the calling bugles hollo
High the screaming fife replies
Gay the files of scarlet follow:
Woman bore me, I will rise
Other Arthur Somervell songs:
all Arthur Somervell songs all songs from 1904