Paul Clark 1981
Written for a play called Days of Pride, produced at Stantonbury Theatre
Roberts & Barrand: Great War Trilogy: The Valley Of The Shadow/The Old Barbed Wire/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=368znaSHI20
Our great attack had failed, We’d nothing left to give, The wounded hanging on the wire had little time to live; The German shells came screaming down to shred them as they lay, Abandoned in the Valley of the Shadow. The battle ground that night, Would look as bright as day, As fairy flares turned blackness into bitter lifeless gray; The twisted shapes that once were men in senseless patterns lay, The tenants of the Valley of the Shadow. The torn and shattered fields, The bits of wire and steel, No blade of grass or leaf or tree to make the place seem real; An ancient traveller passing by just couldn’t help but say, This surely is the Valley of the Shadow. Let pictures of that scene, Be hung on every wall, In rooms where governments decide if men should stand or fall; They’d never go to war again if leaders had their say, While looking at the Valley of the Shadow.