Joseph Mackenzie, 'Sgt. Mackenzie'

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Sgt. Mackenzie

Lay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have gone

Lay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have gone

When they come I will stand my ground
Stand my ground I'll not be afraid

Thoughts of home take away my fear
Sweat and blood hide my veil of tears

Once a year say a prayer for me
Close your eyes and remember me

Never more shall I see the sun
For I fell to a German's gun

Lay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have gone


Original Scots version:

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid

Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Ains a year say a prayer faur me
Close yir een an remember me

Nair mair shall a see the sun
For a fell tae a Germans gun

Lay me doon in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun

"In memory of Sgt. Charles Stuart MacKenzie
Seaforth Highlanders
Who along with many others gave up his life
So that we can live free

We will remember them"

By Joseph Kilna Mackenzie

"The lament, "Sgt MacKenzie", is written and sung by Joe Kilna Mackenzie, son of Maria McCabe and the late Alex McCabe of Provost Christie Drive, Rothes. Joe wrote the song in memory of his Grandfather, a Moray man, from Bishopmill, who along with hundreds of other Seaforth Highlanders from the Elgin/Rothes area went to fight in the great war. Sgt Charles Stuart MacKenzie was bayoneted to death at the age of 35, while defending one of his badly injured colleagues in the hand to hand fighting of the trenches [at Arras.]"
--Source

First Battle of the Aisne, September 1914

http://youtu.be/BB2Ad04mukI

Felicity Currie, 'Once more unto the breach…'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Once more unto the breach…

1
Once more the con of that debasing call
Thralls us to savagery. The right to kill
Is ours. Of course - for west is best of all
And east is east, the least, the beast that will
Devour, devalue what our God made good:
Like us, the way we are, our sovereign greed.
Call it democracy. That, understood,
Translates bloody rapacity as need.
Once more, again, forever, that word breach
Defines us: breach of promise, breach of trust…
We practise every breach our leaders preach -
Keep captives safe for torture and for lust.

Our noble dead live on enshrined in fame;
Theirs rot without a number or a name.

2

I'll tell you what I call a breach of faith:
A Jew by birth and nurture, I believed
That Zionism meant the promised land
For Jew and Arab working hand in hand.
Now, as I dare to say I was deceived,
I face each night my father's vengeful wraith.

Well, let me be a traitor to my race.
The truth has to be told by Jews like me:
I see an Israel with a Nazi face,
A Lebensraum as plain as plain can be,
The victims of the Holocaust betrayed,
Invoked to justify that crime remade

You take the name in vain. Hear, Israel!
It's your barbarity that makes our world a hell.

By Felicity Currie