Colours

For those who talk about the importance of colours - a poem for you to reflect upon - by the way it relates to a combined Welsh and English Regiments massacre by the Zulus (not from Brum) prior to Rourkes Drift - food for thought if you like poetry and can relate to the last couple of days -

THE LOST COLOURS.

Who said we had lost the Colours?
Who carried the tale away.
And whispered it low in England,
With the deeds of that awful day?
The story was washed, they tell us,
Freed from a touch of shame--
Washed in the blood of those who died.
Told in their sacred name.

But they said we had lost the Colours,
And the Colours were safe, you see;
While the story was told in England,
Over the restless sea.
They had not the heart to blame us.
When they knew what the day had cost;
But we felt the shame of the silence laid
On the Colours they thought were lost.

And now to its farthest limit
They will listen and hear our cry;
How could the Colours be lost, I say,
While one was left to die?
Safe on the heart of a soldier,
Where else could the Colours be!
I do not say they were found again,
For they never were lost, you see.

Safe on the heart of a soldier,
Knotted close to his side,
Proudly lie on the quiet breast,
Washed in the crimson tide!
For the heart is silent forever,
Stirred by no flitting breath,
And the Colours he saved are a fitting shroud,
And meet for a soldier's death.

What more would they know in England?
The Colours were lost, they said;
And all the time they were safe, of course,
Though the soldier himself was dead.
The band was stiff, and the heart was cold
And feeble the stalwart limb;
But he was one of the Twenty-fourth,
So the Colours were safe with him.