Mother, for what did you raise your [son]?
Plagued yourself with him for twenty years?
For what did he fly into your arms
And you quietly told him a story?
   Until they took him away from you
   For the trenches, mother, for the trenches.

Boy, can you still remember your father?
Father often lifted you up in his arms
[And he wanted]1 to give you a [penny
and he played]2  cops and robbers with you.
   Until they took him away from you
   For the trenches, boy, for the trenches.

Yonder the French comrades
lay close to England's labourers.
They all shed their blood,
and, shot to pieces, they now rest man beside man.
   Old people, men, many a lad
  in the one great mass grave.

Be not proud of medals and bits of metal!
Be not proud of scars and of the times!
Into the trenches they sent you, the squires,
national mania and the envy of the industrialists.
   You were good enough for the picking of the ravens,
   for the grave, comrades, for the trenches!

Throw away the flag!
                                      The military bands
are striking up for your death dance.
When you are gone: a wreath of immortelles --
that is then the thanks of the fatherland.

   Think of death rattles and moaning.
   Yonder stand fathers, mothers, sons,
   labouring hard like you for their bit of life.
   Do you not wish to give them your hands?
   Stretch out the brotherly hand as the loveliest of gifts
   across the trenches, people, across the trenches --!