The Australian
The bravest thing God ever made!
(A British Officer’s Opinion)
(A British Officer’s Opinion)
The skies that arched his land were blue,
His bush-born winds were warm and sweet,
And yet from earliest hours he knew
The tides of victory and defeat:
From fierce floods thundering at his birth,
From red droughts ravening while he played,
He learned no fear no foes on earth -
The bravest thing God ever made!
His bush-born winds were warm and sweet,
And yet from earliest hours he knew
The tides of victory and defeat:
From fierce floods thundering at his birth,
From red droughts ravening while he played,
He learned no fear no foes on earth -
The bravest thing God ever made!
The bugles of the Motherland
Rang ceaselessly across the sea,
To call him and his lean brown band
To shape Imperial destiny.,
He went by youth’s grave purpose willed,
The goal unknown, the cost unweighed,
The promise of his blood fulfilled -
The bravest thing God ever made!
Rang ceaselessly across the sea,
To call him and his lean brown band
To shape Imperial destiny.,
He went by youth’s grave purpose willed,
The goal unknown, the cost unweighed,
The promise of his blood fulfilled -
The bravest thing God ever made!
We know - it is our deathless pride! -
The splendour of his first fierce blow;
How, reckless, glorious, undenied,
He stormed those steel-lined cliffs we know!
And none who saw him scale the height
Behind his reeking bayonet blade
Would rob him of his title right -
The bravest thing God ever made!
The splendour of his first fierce blow;
How, reckless, glorious, undenied,
He stormed those steel-lined cliffs we know!
And none who saw him scale the height
Behind his reeking bayonet blade
Would rob him of his title right -
The bravest thing God ever made!
Bravest, where half a world of men
Are brave beyond all earth’s rewards,
So stoutly none shall charge again
Till the last breaking of the swords;
Wounded or hale, won home from war,
Or yonder by the Lone Pine laid,
Give him his due for evermore -
The bravest thing God ever made!
Are brave beyond all earth’s rewards,
So stoutly none shall charge again
Till the last breaking of the swords;
Wounded or hale, won home from war,
Or yonder by the Lone Pine laid,
Give him his due for evermore -
The bravest thing God ever made!
W. H. Ogilvie
The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was a First World War army corps of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force that was formed in Egypt in 1915 and operated during the Battle of Gallipoli. General William Birdwood commanded the corps, which comprised troops from the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and 1st New Zealand Expeditionary Force. The corps was disbanded in 1916 following the Allied evacuation of the Gallipoli peninsula but the while some Australian troops stayed in the Middle East and distinguished themselves at places like Gaza and Beersheeba, most of the 1st AIF were sent like lambs to the slaughter in France and Belgium.
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