The Cowardice of Francis Evans

I watched the frost cry for sunrise Jewelling the swords of soil dawn gave birth to death and a choir of corvid's rejoiced on steel giants by granite platoon's. Dawn dances in its white gown On empty graves dressed in nettles The wind has come to moan The sun has rose to fall And like the crown of winters queen All that lives is all that's green. My great uncle sleeps here Shot for cowardice in 1917 He held his friends cranium Then held his friend Took his wedding ring for safekeeping And hitched a ride to Esbjerg. He left Esbjerg a soldier of the King Arrived in Harwich a traitor He lived to complete his vow And arrived at Ethel's a man. "William told me to tell you Goodbye" and gave her a pressed thistle, Ethel remarried and had twelve grandchildren My Uncle was captured on his 20th year Tied to a plinth with a blindfold Singing "Abide with me" Before he was shot by six children. Every epitaph tells a story And my Uncle so loved the dawn His name was Francis Evans The fiancé of Margaret The Father of her miscarriage And coward revoked 80 years later by a fat mayor in Warwick.