<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Song of the Dead</h1><p class="byline"> J. H. M. ABBOTT <br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/><span class="smallcaps">IN The London Outlook</span></p><p class="inline-note" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">Large numbers of Australian and New Zealand volunteers are already on the water bound for Vancouver, en route for Europe.--Paragraph of War News, 1915.</p><div class="stanza"><p class="line">OH Land of Ours, hear the song we make for you</p><p class="line">Land of yellow wattle bloom, land of smiling Spring-</p><p class="line">Hearken to the after words, land of pleasant memories,</p><p class="line">Shea--oaks of the shady creeks, hear the song we sing. </p><p class="line">For we lie quietly, underneath the lonely hills,</p><p class="line">Where the land is silent, where the guns have ceased boom,</p><p class="line">Here we are waiting, and shall wait for Eternity--</p><p class="line">Here on the battle--fields, where we found our doom.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Spare not thy pity--Life is strong and fair for you--</p><p class="line">City by the waterside, homestead on the plain.</p><p class="line">Keep ye remembrance, keep ye a place for us--</p><p class="line">So all the bitterness of dying be not vain.</p><p class="line">Oh, be ye mindful, mindful of our honor's name;</p><p class="line">Oh, be ye careful of the word ye speak in jest--</p><p class="line">For we have bled for you; for we have died for you-</p><p class="line">Yea, we have given, we have given our best.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Life that we might have lived, love that we might have loved,</p><p class="line">Sorrow of all sorrows, we have drunk thy bitter lees. </p><p class="line">Speak thou a word to us, here in our narrow beds--</p><p class="line">Word of thy mourning lands beyond the Seas.</p><p class="line">Lo, we have paid the price, paid the cost of Victory. </p><p class="line">Do not forget, when the rest shall homeward come--</p><p class="line">Mother of our childhood, sister of our manhood days, </p><p class="line">Loved of our heavy hearts, whom we have left alone.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Hark to the guns--pause and turn, and think of us--</p><p class="line">Red was our life's blood, and heavy was the cost. </p><p class="line">But ye have Nationhood, but ye are a people strong--</p><p class="line">Oh, have ye love for the brothers ye have lost? </p><p class="line">Oh, by the blue skies, clear beyond the mountain tops, </p><p class="line">Oh, by the dear, dun plains where we were bred,--</p><p class="line">What be your tokens, tokens that ye grieve for us, </p><p class="line">Tokens of your Sorrowing for we that be Dead? </p></div></body></html> · Great War