Our heroic dead, though war hath laid you low,
      And cruelly robbed you of this earthly life,
    You did your best against the fiendish foe,
      And gave your all to put an end to strife.

    Our comrades still, sleep on; your names will live
      Long after this terrific war hath ceased. 
    No cannon’s roar, no hurtling shell, no bomb
      Can harm thee or disturb your long last sleep.

    Down in your soldiers’ graves you rest from toil,
      Without the knowledge of the Hun’s fierce hate. 
    The shell-struck, blood-stained clods of Belgian soil
      Will open to your souls the Pearly Gate.

    There is no place on this earth’s troubled face
      So sacred as the ground which shields your heads,
    Fit resting-place for those so true and brave,
      Who for THE CAUSE the fullest price have paid.

    Australia’s sons the sacrifice supreme
      For honour, truth, and freedom gladly made;
    And though the price as high again had been,
      We’d have paid it, bravely, for the Nation’s sake.

    Comrades, sleep on, till God’s great Spirit comes
      To clothe you with the life which never ends;
    And o’er this shell-swept, bruised, and bleeding land
      Victorious and enduring peace descends.

THE SILVER LINING

War in itself is not a blessing—­neither is the surgeon’s knife.  If it were a choice between a slow, painful death from a malignant cancer, or an operation, which would give pain for the time being, but which ultimately would bring relief and complete recovery—­invariably the choice would be in favour of the operation.

War is hell, but its prosecution as an effective means in arresting the development of the cancer of mad militarism was as essential as the use of the surgeon’s knife to remove a malignant growth.

War is an ugly business—­it is carnage and horror.  The thought of man butchered by his brother, the thought of both sea and land stained with human blood, spilled by human hands, is too horrible for contemplation.  Yet peace at the price we were asked to pay would have been, in its effects, considerably worse than war.

There are accruing to us individually, and to the Empire, blessings which possibly no other event (certainly not undisturbed tranquillity) than this unprecedented conflict could have created.  There are compensations that are apt to be overlooked.  To realize appreciably the compensatory effects in connexion with this conflict, it is necessary that we turn from the purely sordid and sad aspect to its spiritual and constructive side.  The question, Has this war produced anything that would approximately counterbalance the arrest of industry and progress, waste of life at its prime, the desolation of hearts and homes, the devastation of property, and the incalculable measures of sorrow and suffering?—­is permissible, and we forget not the atrocities on both land and sea, the deliberate violation of individual and international laws, and the fact that there is hardly a street without a loss, and scarce a heart without anxiety.