<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Playmates</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">It's sixty years ago, the people say:</p><p class="line">Two village children, neighbours born and bred,</p><p class="line">One morning played beneath a rotten tree</p><p class="line">That came down crash and caught them as they fled;</p><p class="line">And one was killed and one was left unhurt</p><p class="line">Except for certain fancies in his head.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And though it's all so very long ago</p><p class="line">He's never left the wood a single day;</p><p class="line">I've often met him peeping through the leaves</p><p class="line">And chuckling to himself, an old man grey;</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And once he started in his cracked old voice:</p><p class="line">"We're playing I'm a merchant lost his way,</p><p class="line">She's robbers in the wood behind yon tree,</p><p class="line">The minute we grow up too big to play"------</p></div></body></html> · Great War