GLOUCESTERSHIRE MEN

Gloucester, Glevum, and Caer Glow, The name is nothing! Then as now Men mowed the meadow-grass for cattle, Died for Gloucestershire in battle, Fought, and loved, and built, and planned, And wrested with this kindly land. Man’s tiny spark of mortal fire Seems suddenly big in Gloucestershire. The little chain of life on earth Lengthens out round Minsterworth. Here and in all the country round Marks of men are on the ground. Here no brooding iron peak, No barren desert is, to shriek The little loneliness of man, Whose days are measured by a span; But in the faces of our brothers See we the looks of those old “others”: The men in yonder humped-up barrow, Crouched with their mortal joys and sorrow; The Roman soldier sound asleep By walls where English weeds slow creep (A thousand years are but a span ...): Each dead man was a Gloucestershire man!