Toy Soldiers Poem by Gwilym Williams

I barracked my soldiers in
A Quality Street tin
And every so often I took them out
And on the floor I marched them about.
They were hollow
And made with tin and lead
And poisonous paint in gold and red.
Their arms and legs and heads fell off
And in the end only one was left.
This was the drummer
And he marched alone
For a few weeks longer
Then he too was gone.

I buried them unceremoniously
In the top field
Beneath the old tree
And when I got back home
I took out the Meccano Set
And built a bridge with that instead.