Prize Winning Poem - Overseas Category.

Here is the prize winning poem in the Overseas Category. It was read out at the Prize Presentation Evening by Rev Ed Saville.

"The Soldier" By Edgar Esler (New Zealand)

From every corner of the earth

The call came loud and strong
The guns of war began to boom
And his sword he girded on
He was ready to fight and bravely die
His country he did love
He’d risk his life for freedoms sake
And trust in the one above

Shells were falling thick and fast

Bursting on the ground
A fragment strikes him on the chest
And throws him to the ground
The sun goes down and it is night
Darkness comes o’er the land
On the battlefield lies a dying man
With his rifle in his hand

He dreams of his childhood days

And then his years at school
Of playing by a babbling brook
Or fishing by a pool
His body at last grows stiff and cold
His heavy eyelids close
His soul hath found eternal rest
And forever sweet repose.