Gentle Traveller

From the softness of Eastern hills
O’ gentle traveller
you came
to understand.
When they kill your people,
these brutes from dusty plains
you understand;
for you
O’ gentle traveller
have fought your battles
in hostelries
and written poems
of revelries
that might have been

Stay a while
O’ gentle traveller
lest the sodden fields
of wet western plains,
where poppies grow
and where emperors fell,
and the damp tread
of Iron Duke’s feet
in ghostly memory
of fallen men,
claim you back,
stay a while,
O’ gentle traveller
for you will understand.