Song Of The Australians In Action
by
For the honour of Australia, our mother,
Side by side with our kin from over sea,
We have fought and we have tested one another,
And enrolled among the brotherhood are we.
There was never post of danger but we sought it
In the fighting, through the fire, and through the flood.
There was never prize so costly but we bought it,
Though we paid for its purchase with our blood.
Was there any road too rough for us to travel?
Was there any path too far for us to tread?
You can track us by the blood drops on the gravel
On the roads that we milestoned with our dead!
And for you, oh our young and anxious mother,
O’er your great gains keeping watch and ward,
Neither fearing nor despising any other,
We will hold your possessions with the sword.
. . . . .
Then they passed to the place of world-long sleeping,
The grey-clad figures with their dead,
To the sound of their women softly weeping
And the Dead March moaning at their head:
And the Nations, as the grim procession ended,
Whispered, ‘Child! But ye have seen the price we pay,
From War may we ever be defended,
Kneel ye down, new-made Sister — Let us Pray!’