In Memoriam - R. M. Stalker Poem by Ewart Alan Mackintosh

As I go down the highway,
And through the village street,
I hear the pipers playing
And the tramp of marching feet.
The men I worked and fought with
Swing by me four on four.
And at the end you follow
Whom I shall see no more.

Oh, Stalk, where are you lying ?
Somewhere and far away,
Enemy hands have buried
Your quiet contemptuous clay.
There was no greeting given,
No tear of friend for friend,
From us when you flew over
Exultant to the end.

I couldn't see the paper,
I couldn't think that you
Would never walk the highway
The way you used to do.
I turn at every footfall,
Half-hoping, half -afraid
To see you coming, later
Than usual for parade.

The old Lairg clique is broken,
I drove there yesterday.
And the car was full of ghosts that sat
Beside me all the way.
Ghosts of old songs and laughter,
Ghosts of the jolly three,
That went the road together
And go no more with me.

Oh, Stalk, but I am lonely.
For the old days we knew.
And the bed on the floor at Lesdos
We slept in, I and you.
The joyful nights in billets
We laughed and drank and swore —
But the candle's burned out now, Stalk,
In the mess at Henancourt.

The candle's burned out now, old man.
And the dawn's come grey and cold.
And I sit by the fire here
Alone and sad and old.
Though all the rest come back again.
You lie in a foreign land,
And the strongest link of all the chain
Is broken in my hand.