Well how do you do, young Willie McBride, Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun I've been working all day and I'm nearly done. I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen When you joined the dead heroes of nineteen-sixteen. I hope you died well and I hope you died clean Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene. Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly, Did they sound the dead-march as they lowered you down. Did the bugles play the Last Post and chorus, Did the pipes play the 'Flooers o' the Forest'. And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined Although you died back there in nineteen-sixteen In that faithful heart are you ever nineteen Or are you a stranger without even a name Enclosed and forgotten behind the glass frame In a old photograph, torn and battered and stained And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.