THOUGHTS ON APRIL TWENTY-FIFTH.

This day Australians, in the clash, men

Proved themselves peers of all who fought and died
Since the first sword was reddened. Now, as then,
Drums beat and brazen trumpets call to pride
In the imaginings of changeless men
Old men whose bitter wills are not denied.

They dream new wars with flame on land and sea,
New wailings of despair and cries of pain,
With nations wrestling in strong agony
To reach a goal forever void and vain.
Nothing they learned. What was, they say, must be
While lust of blood is kin to lust of gain.

Oh, ye that have the ordering of our land,
Beneath whose word the great wide future lies,
Remember those low graves beside the strand,
The bitter tears that fell from widowed eyes;
Remember, and remembering understand
The vaunting folly that oermatched the wise.

War is not made by legions in the field,
By earth uptorn with gusts of fiery heat.
Mars does not stride behind his clanging shield
To trample men beneath his iron feet;
But the great murder-script is signed and sealed
By some old man in his well-guarded seat.

Because the past had torn itself to death,
Aping the adders fang and tigers claw,
Because some zelot cried The Lord thus saith
Above old fields of slaughter red and raw,
A statesman yawns and draws a wheezy breath;
And doom and torment are a nations law.




No nation ever yet held such large hate
To take this ancient evil to its heart,
For joy of ruin on a sad world-mate
To draw the sword and bid the red flames start,
But that some heedless voice that seemed like fate
Spoke the dread word and bade it play its part.

Remember our Gallipoli and hold
The freemans power undelegated still,
That war come never as the wars of old,
But only by the peoples spoken will.
Shall we rear sons to idle slaughter sold
By one in passing power who lusts to kill?

Ask of the people! Will they rise to slay
For some vain thing ye wrought in their great name?
The sport with death ye dare no longer play
If once the people make or mar the game.
Since that red dawning of an April day
The skies have changed, the world is not the same.

We have the glory. In the stress proved true,
Our bravest met the red death opened eyed.
Loud Fame on all her golden trumpets blew
So loud a blast that pain seemed deified;
Yet, could our hands the bitter pest undo,
Take back the glory. Give up those who died!

David McKee Wright
N.S.W.
The Worker, 28
th
April 1921