'Keep the Home Fires Burning' sheet music

'Keep the Home Fires Burning' was a popular British patriotic song during the First World War. The words were written by American lyricist Lena Gilbert Brown Ford. The music was composed by Welshman Ivor Novello. Ford and Novello collaborated on the song's production in 1914. It was the first major success for Novello and the only one for Ford.

The song was published first as 'Till the Boys Come Home' on 8 October 1914 by Ascherberg, Hopwood, and Crew, Ltd. in London. A new edition was printed in 1915 with the name 'Keep the Home Fires Burning'.

This particular version was published in Australia and was owned by Gwendoline Morrison (1899-1920) of Dunedin, New Zealand. She probably played it when her brother Leonard Maxwell Morrison (1897-1974) was serving overseas in the First World War (1918-19).

'Keep the Home Fires Burning (Till the Boys Come Home.)

They were summoned from the hillside,

They were called in from the glen,

And the Country found them ready

At the stirring call for men.

Let no tears add to their hardship,

As the Soldiers pass along,

And although your heart is breaking,

Make it sing this cheery song.

Refrain. Keep the Home-fires burning,

While your hearts are yearning,

Though your lads are far away

They dream of home;

There's a silver lining

Through the dark cloud shining,

Turn the dark cloud inside out,

Till the boys come Home.

Over seas there came a pleading,

"Help a Nation in distress!"

And we gave our glorious laddies;

Honour bade us do no less.

For no gallant Son of Britain

To a foreign yoke shall bend,

And no Englishman is silent

To the sacred call of Friend.

Refrain. Keep the Home-fires burning, etc.

Lena Guilbert Ford.'