In the cornfields speckled poppies glow in a twilight, moving shadows, From the High Wood the reaper walks, a harvest to be gathered, The skylark's solo fateful cry, the hares alert now scattered, The pheasant raised by beating drums in a field prepared for battle
The orders raised at crack of dawn, the regiment made ready then stood the day beneath a sun, impatient for their calling, And now's the time and now's the hour and now's the chance for glory The clarion call, the bugles sent the lancers from Crucifix Corner
The melody of pounding hooves, their harnesses a jangling, and up the line the squadrons move a dark parade assembling Light horse crossing heavy ground, trembling trepidation, the steaming flanks the nervous hearts require no more motivation, fleeting prayers by Crucifix Corner.
Where spent men rise and the wounded cheer at the sight of their salvation, The hopes and prayers for the breakthrough promised this conflict will soon be over
Leaping hedges, rusting broken wire, through a maze of desperate trenches, all around the world explodes as the barrage gains momentum
Shells gouge dark the golden fields, fresh graves formed in craters; the shrapnel's jagged deadly thorns tear troopers from their chargers Through this wall of smoke and flame this lethal iron curtain, to gain the slope, the woods beyond, where hunting will be certain
I've seen you through these bloody days and I'll see you through another, I promise you we will meet again in the shade of crucifix corner.
Like game that's flushed from standing corn exposed now in the open, driven on a tide of fear, outrun, the ranks are broken Some are stuck with piercing lance others slashed by sabre, a primal fear engulfs this ancient terror, chill surrender
And now's the time and now's the hour and now's the chance for glory We'll carry the field and the ridge beyond and break these lines before us We'll charge into the open ground to the valleys barely yonder They'll remember when we took the day when we passed through Crucifix Corner
And then the darkness stole the day Our hopes were dashed the charge was broken Those who survived returned to Crucifix Corner
In the cornfields ripening corpses sweet in a sunrise moving shadows, From the High Wood the reaper walked to a harvest duly gathered, The skylark's solo mournful cry above spirits torn and tattered, In a new dawn the whistle blows on a field prepared for battle