The Dead Hero's Grave

He fell in a battle from here far away But in his native earth his remains now lay The war that he fought in by his side not won And the aged mother she still grieves the loss of her son. A fading bouquet of flowers on the dead hero's grave Placed there by the mother who loved him for her son who died brave He fell in a distant battle four decades ago And he was a great person as she ought to know. In his early twenties just twenty one years For her long dead son the widow has not shed all of her tears In her early eighties sad and bent and gray The clock on her life it is ticking away. He was her only offspring which seems the more sad And he did not have the chance to become a dad He died under gunfire a noble young man In a war in Asia in distant Vietnam.