The Iron Youth Paired with James Blunt’s “No Bravery”

“Won’t you join up Comrades?” These teachers always carry their feelings ready in their waistcoat pockets, and trot them out by the hour “Won’t you join up Comrades?”

No one had the Vaguest Idea what we were in for. We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs

We are none of us more than twenty years old… …And we saw that there was nothing of their world left

We are the Iron Youth.

The war has us for everything RUINED

I believe we are lost We are forlorn like children And experienced like old men I believe we are lost

We are not youth any longer To play cards To swear And to Fight Not much for twenty years; And yet Too much for twenty years

We believe in war Our humor becomes more bitter each month. Soldier with the big boots and shut heart And if anyone were to caress him he would hardly understand…

You are lost I am little more than a child. You are home, You are home But a sense of strangeness will not leave me. I am a soldier I am little more than a child. The thought leaps up with a terrible throttling fear; You are lost

Yet I know nothing of life but: I am young I am twenty years old, Yet I know nothing of life but: Despair Death Fear And fatuous superficiality

- Out of twenty, seven are dead four wounded one in a mad house Eight _________________ Eight

WE ARE THE IRON YOUTH We are lost. Youth?… We are old folk That was long ago. We are old folk We are lost.