Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

My Great Uncle, Thomas LeCheminant, served with the AIF and fought in the battle of Bullecourt in 1917. He wrote the following poem in memory of his close friend, Pte Stanley Piper, who died during the battle and is now buried at Queant Road Cemetery in France. My eldest brother and I will read the poem at Stan Piper's grave on 21 July 2017.
Tim Noonan

Retrospect

By T.J. LeCheminant

Across the vast hiatus of the years,
The intervening gulf of hopes and fears,
Of fond remembrance and, I must confess,
Of barren spaces of forgetfulness,
My spirit leaps triumphant to that night,
In time and space-annihilating flight:
That night when we two trudged the sunken road,
Groaning beneath the burden of the load;
And when you staggered, I said "water, Stan?"
And you accepted, saying "thanks old man."
And then we parted. When the morning came,
I chanced to hear another say your name.
I turned. He saw the question in my glance:
I read the answer in his countenance.
That night I did the little I could do,
Then marked the spot and bid a last adieu.

* * *
The moon her orbit many times had spanned
When peace descended on the ravished land.
The years in passing had assuaged my loss,
And I came back to plant an oaken cross
To mark the hallowed spot wherein was laid
The staunchest comrade God has ever made.

I thought to find the once familiar scene
But all was changed; a carpet rich and green
Hid all that tortured field, with poppies grac'd,
Where all was brown before, and barren waste.
The trench, the dugout near where you were laid
Had disappeared. A railway newly made
That sacred precinct seemed to desecrate-
By love made holy: sanctified by hate;
Where foemen mingled their departing
breath
In life divided but at one in death.

The long-portended rain began to fall
My spirit fell in unison, for all
That I so long had planned and hoped
and dreamed
Had ended in futility, it seemed.
When suddenly the thought flashed through
my head:
"Why should I straitly circumscribe his bed?
Though I can never hope the spot to trace
I'll think the hill his final resting place."
And at the summit, 'neath a weeping sky,
I fixed the cross to face the way you lie,
Your feet advanced, your back upon the
sod,
And thus I left you, in the arms of God.