I sing of my comrades That once did sing
In that great choir at Albacete
Before the battle. Rank after rank
Of the young battalions
Singing the Internationale
They came from every corner of the earth
So many men from distant lands
Each with his private history
Who took to arms in the defence
Of Spain’s Republic.
Madrid the magnet that drew us all
Along slow roads to Spain – at last a star
For desperate men, sensing the gathering storm
And we that fought to warn a watching world
Were called false prophets by appeasers
Yet we fought for the poor of the world.
Our lullabies were soldiers’ songs
Dead in the mud of the trenches
Sung by sad women to the sons of the fallen.
And remembered in Remembrance Day long past
After the thudding drum and shriek of bugles
I listened to the slow lament
For brothers, sons and lovers lost.
It is the sadness in the singing,
The undertones of woe,
The deep vein of grief
That throbs throughout my generation.
http://www.international-brigades.org.uk/poetry/davidmarshall/
http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/books/archive/poemsfromspain.html