Remembering the Past Australia
Gallipoli (A Poem)
Penned by P. W. S.
of Anson's Bay, Tasmania
published in the Daily Telegraph (Launceston)
on 23 April 1920
(A Tribute to the Memory of our Fallen Comrades)
FOR ANZAC DAY
Not all in vain — Australia’s sons,
Who gained the prize so dearly won:
Those high achievements now obtained:
The freedom of ‘The Narrows’ ‘ gained.
Not on beaten tracks they came that way
But scaled the heights on that great day —
That day of all — in history writ —
Found Anzac youths with iron grit.
The Spartans, by the world idealed,
At Thermopylae they would not yield.
Triumphant supreme, the nations speak —
Spartans and Anzac stand unique.
“The wash” at Anzac Cove is light,
And the day at dawn seems ever bright;
They sleep beneath an alien sky —
Those Anzac men who dared to die.
Sleep on, your duty nobly done!
Your comrades “carried on” and won.
The name you framed on that great day —
”Anzac,’ is written in immortal lay.
Yours was a sacrifical gift to all —
A people’ s answer to the nation’s call.
Outside Amiens and in Palestine
We avenged your sacrificial death divine.
The past has merged into the present’s might.
The Kaiser and his satellites taste their plight.
We gave our best in those dark hours,
And now the honor, shall be theirs — the dead’s ours.
