When Margaret Was Eleven

My father sailed away, the band played tunes of glory

A giant man with ribbons, bedeviled dignity

A regimental sergeant, the backbone of the Empire

For God and righteous glory bound for High Germany

Sweet Lord, I was just seven when Margaret was eleven

They served us war for breakfast and soldiers' songs for tea

"Your father's gone campaigning" was a way of not explaining

That soldiers are the living proof of our inhumanity

My childhood passed away midst the tales and lurid stories

Of manufactured glories and inhuman gallantry

I asked, "When is war over?", but no one deemed to answer me

And Margaret played that dreaded tune called High Germany

My father made it home, but he came without his reason

Two eyes of molten madness, a senseless fool of war

"He's just a child," my mother cried, "to be dressed in full regalia

And paraded as a hero home from High Germany"

There'll be no tunes of glory for Margaret and me