Early on an autumn morning,
Facing famous Courcellette,
Lay the Twenty-fifth battalion,
In the trenches damp and wet;
Far away from home and kindred,
Near the far-famed river Somme,
Here and there a man lay dying,
Stricken by a shell or bomb.
Men of every trade and calling,
Of each company formed a part,
Downy youth and bearded manhood
From the farm and from the mart,
Miners, farmers, sailors, tradesmen,
From each hamlet, town and glen,
Born of Nova Scotian mothers
From the breed of manly men.
All alert and ever watching,
On the guard both day and night,
Each one ever his part doing,
In the struggle for the right;
Thinking always of the homeland
Far away in Acadie,
Of a mother, wife, or sister
Whom they never more might see.
On the high hills overlooking,
All the country down below,
In their deep concreted dugouts,
Lay the ever watchful foe;
With artillery commanding
All the hills for miles around,
Through which, like a thread of silver,
River Somme its free way wound.
There were Saxons and Bavarians
In the Hun’s embattled host,
And the fierce and bloody Uhlans
Whom the Kaiser loves to toast;
Where they stood in close formation
Like a solid human block
Fronted by the famous fighters
Called the troops of battle shock.
When upon the morn in question,
Just about the break of day,
Word the Twenty-fifth was given
To make ready for the fray;
And they sprang up from their trenches
Like the wild lynx with a bound,
And they rushed without a falter
Right across the barrage ground;
And they fell upon the Germans
Like an avalanche of hail,
And the Teutons bent before them
Like the grain before the gale.
And with irresisting fury
They assailed the faltering Hun,
And before the day was over
Famous Courcellette was won.
Then let mothers tell their babies
Whom they nurse upon their breasts,
And the teachers tell the children
In our schools from east to west,
How at Courcellette’s fierce battle,
An undying name was made
By the Twenty-fifth battalion
Of the fighting fifth brigade.
