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.