Spot on Peat!
Who am I, Who am I,
I am the dust of the glorious dead that will not settle,
I am a triumphal echo born of Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt
Where my enemies knew too well my mettle,
I am the pull on the yew bending longbow
The victory roll on Drake's defiant drum,
The divine wind that blew the Armada through the channel
And onwards then to kingdom come,
I am the powder and the shot
Of brave Horatio's bold broadside,
That dispatched his foe homeward bound
As flotsam on the returning Trafalgar tide,
I am the sorrow of battle won
On the blood soaked field at Waterloo,
I am the bugle call for the valiant fallen
That never made it through,
I am the sunlight on the six hundred sabres
Charging through the valley to open up deaths door,
I am the ghostly jingle of bit and bridle
From a broken brigade that rides on for evermore,
My Father's Father took a bullet at the slaughter that was passchendaele
Yet denying his wounds lived on to fight again,
My Father stood fast with the Durham's and held the line
Before the guns rolled back from Sedjenaine,
My standard is the bloodied cross of Christ
To which my patron saint did give his name,
It denotes a way, of truth, and of liberty
Of which no other can proclaim,
The world speaks my language,
And it is set in stone,
I serve my Queen and Country
With every loyal ounce of flesh and bone,
I am the thin red line that will not yield
I am that far off corner of a foreign field
I am an Englishman!
J. Armstrong
