| |
| FROM Clee to heaven the beacon burns, | |
| The shires have seen it plain, | |
| From north and south the sign returns | |
| And beacons burn again. | |
| |
| Look left, look right, the hills are bright, | 5 |
| The dales are light between, | |
| Because ’tis fifty years to-night | |
| That God has saved the Queen. | |
| |
| Now, when the flame they watch not towers | |
| About the soil they trod, | 10 |
| Lads, we ’ll remember friends of ours | |
| Who shared the work with God. | |
| |
| To skies that knit their heartstrings right, | |
| To fields that bred them brave, | |
| The saviours come not home to-night | 15 |
| Themselves they could not save. | |
| |
| It dawns in Asia, tombstones show | |
| And Shropshire names are read; | |
| And the Nile spills his overflow | |
| Beside the Severn’s dead. | 20 |
| |
| We pledge in peace by farm and town | |
| The Queen they served in war, | |
| And fire the beacons up and down | |
| The land they perished for. | |
| |
| ‘God save the Queen’ we living sing, | 25 |
| From height to height ’tis heard; | |
| And with the rest your voices ring, | |
| Lads of the Fifty-third. | |
| |
| Oh, God will save her, fear you not: | |
| Be you the men you ’ve been, | 30 |
| Get you the sons your fathers got, | |
| And God will save the Queen. | |
| |
