Remembance Sunday

Sunday 9th November was Remembrance Sunday and our parish newsletter had the following poem on the front, which I am sure you would like to share:
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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 primroses beneath the tree.

If I should never hear the thrushes wake
Long before sunrise in the glimmering dawn,
Or watch the huge Atlantic rollers break
Against the rugged cliffs in baffling 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 I bear witness with my latest breath
Knowing the love of God, I fear not death.

(Lines found in the Bible of Major Malcom Boyle,
killed in action after the landing on D-Day, June 1944)