TO ALL WHO HAVE LOST FRIENDS IN THE WAR

There’s many an aching heart to-day,
There’s many a lonely home;
There’s many now have lost dear friends
In France across the foam.

But mothers, wives and sisters all
No matter where you be,
We mourn with you for your soldier lads
We sympathise with thee.

We feel for you, we understand
Just how you feel today,
When you think on those who nobly fell
In France so far away.

We know how much you suffer,
We know your hearts are sore,
When you think on those you’ll never see
Down here on earth no more.

But let this consolation ease
Your agonising pain,
Those gone before will never more
Feel sad or grieved again.

Their troubles over, now they’ve gone
To that happy land above,
Gone from a world of care and strife
To a world of peace and love.

But, ah, how hard it is to part
With those we love so dear,
We know they’re safely home at last,
But how we miss them here.

But God works all thing for our good
He makes us sad or gay;
It’s not to fill us with gloom He takes
Our dearest friends away.

He moves in many wondrous ways,
All things by Him are planned;
Though in a most mysterious way
That we don’t understand.

We too must walk in death’s dark vale
How soon we never know
For life is short, our days on earth
Are few and full of woe.

A few short years at most may pass
Till we meet those gone before,
And never more to part again
When we join hands once more.

W. Spence, Tullygrawley
21st September 1918