a handful of lines for a lost regiment

The boys have gone to foreign shores,
And it is silent in the glade,
No more to fight their toy-sword wars
Beneath the swaying poplars’ shade.

In regiments finely arrayed
They marched through town to cheers and roars
But now there will be no parade;
The boys have gone to foreign shores.

As lads they frolicked out-of-doors
And till the cusp of dusk they stayed
Now no one treads the forests’ floors
And it is silent in the glade

As bullet zipped and cannon brayed
They swore their oaths and never-mores;
(Stark playthings have the boys arrayed
No more to fight their toy-sword wars.)

It’s said that Nature all restores,
That God answers all that we’ve prayed
But crosses dot the fields and moors
Beneath the swaying poplars’ shade.

The wins and losses all assayed
And written down like cricket scores,
With yeoman gallantry replayed,
Though this the agate type ignores;
The boys have gone.