The Great Christmas (1914)

The guns have fallen silent, o’er the land no man claims right
and from somewhere in the trenches comes the strains of Silent Night.
A harmonica cuts through the dark and I can almost feel
a regiment of angels rising from the mud, to kneel.

Is that the boy, from Aldershot, who yesterday in tears,
went o’er the top to charge the foe, though barely sixteen years?
Could that be young John Kelly, christened ‘Smiler’ from Belfast?
who claimed we’d all be home by now, “This war will never last!”

A Tenor, from the Valleys, resonates through frosty air;
surely none but Heaven’s own, could claim a voice so fair.
But wait…a German Alto carries on the mists of morn
and sings of peace, goodwill to men, because a saviour’s born.

And so today no man will die; no life will be forfeit,
my enemies will be my friends, the pipes of peace be lit.
I will embrace and share a smile, with those I may yet kill,
for on this day – this special day – it seems, it is God’s will.

Chris Birrane ©2011