I’ll meet you by the Moose he said,

It’s a Caribou, I thought

As his friends walked on ahead

to survey the pot-holed earth

 

They fell in piles just over there,

past that small, neat track

Close by the shattered tree

In their brave reckless attack

 

Now ‘No mans land’ is a gentle green

where the New Foundlanders all fell

Dying for a far off King

Pulverised by savage shell.

 

In a half-hour hell it was over

A generation lost

From  an Island far away, and

where still they count the cost

 

They met up by the Caribou

looked again across the field,

They cursed the tragedy of man,

When his pride it cannot yield.

Beaumont-Hamel, 2016