IN THIS WIDE WORLD

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Amabile Choirs of London, Carol Beynon

LYRICS

Here on the top of Vimy Ridge I stand
And looking out behold so vast a land
What wreckage here, where once was landscape fair

What woeful damage done beyond compare
To this broad plain below, so rare
Which once did smile.
And breathed its love.
For all mankind

When shall it end, when will all this torture cease?
In this wide world.

by Andrew Lane

Mr. Gordon Lane (London, Ontario) submitted his father’s First World War poems which had only recently been rediscovered. Andrew Lane was a Gunner with the 43rd Battery Canadian Field Artillery. The unit was commissioned in 1916 by Lt. Col. David McCrae, John McCrae’s father. Gunner Lane’s poems written in 1917- 1918, provide us with a contemporary soldier’s thoughts and emotions.