“They never fail who die in a great cause.” ― George Gordon Byron

In a corner of a far flung attic,
disguised by decades’ of dust,
you doggedly grip papers
together, tethered, trapped,
his last Will, a testament
to those he fought with.


My fingers, three generations on,
squeeze your sides.
Like Arthurian stone,
you release your sword
to one you recognise as your own.
Duty done, you snap back smartly,
Like a square bashed soldier, renewed for action.


You were the last thing he touched,
in the ditches of France,
entrusted with dark memories
of our freedom’s birth.
I see his fingerprints in the dust,
and place my fingers there,
two sides of the same sheaf.
I place you with his medals.
Its where he would want you
British Bulldog, rest in peace