On Radio 2 this morning, General Sir Richard Dannatt read part of a poem by Major Malcolm (Sammy) Boyle, from the 7th Green Howards who went to Normandy in June 1944 for the D-Day landings.
Life and Eternity
If I should never see the moon again
Rising, red gold across the harvest field,
Or feel the stinging of soft April rain,
As the brown earth, her hidden treasures yield.
If I should never taste the salt sea spray
As the ship beats her course against the breeze,
Or smell the dog rose and the new mown hay,
Or moss and primrose beneath the trees.
If I should never hear the thrushes wake
Long before sunrise in the glimmering down;
Or watch the huge Atlantic rollers break
Against the rugged cliffs in battling scorn.
If I have said goodbye to stream and wood
To the wide ocean and the green clad hill,
I know that he who made this world so good
Has somewhere made a heaven better still.
This bear I witness with my latest breath
Knowing the love of God, I fear not death.
Major Boyle never returned from Normandy. He was killed in action on 16th June 1944.
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