A shell-struck souvenir of hellish war, A monument of man's stupendous hate! Can this have been a Paradise before, Now up-blown, blasted, drear and desolate? Aye, once with smiling and contented face She reigned a queen above a charming place.
But soon the sport of leaders and of kings Transformed her to a resting-place for guns, Rude scars across her breasts the worker flings, To shelter countless hordes of hell-born Huns, The while, upon the next opposing crest, Our men died gamely as they did their best.
And thus for years, with cold, relentless zeal, With fiendish science both sides fought and watched, From loop-holes or from clouds which half conceal, Or in deep tunnels all their skill was matched. On sentry in the firebay, or the hov'ring 'plane, Mining and countermining yet again.
And far behind such scenes, great engineers Pondered o'er problems without parallel. And planned with wisdom of a thousand years, To blow the other to eternal Hell. Their calculations left no callous scheme untried, To slaughter hundreds of the other side.
But hush! the whole machinery's complete, All plans are folded and the great work's done, The work of building up to cause defeat-- The lever's pulled, and, lo! a new work has begun. The task of falling on a shattered foe, And doing things undreamed-of years ago.
Hush! hark! A mighty rumbling roar breaks thro', And see! Her crest-line leaps into a flame, The foul disease within her bowels she blew High into the air to rid her of her shame; In one huge vomit she now flings her filth, Far o'er the country in a powdered 'tilth.'
And so the vassals of a fiendish foe Are scattered far and wide into a dust. Those who have revelled as they wreaked red woe, A shattered sample of their own blood-lust. Whilst from our hill-crest and its catacomb, A new life comes a-pouring from the tomb.
Eager, and burning with the zeal of youth, Our Second Anzacs sprang from out the ground, Bound by their mateships and their love of truth, The Third Division its new soul has found; Straight o'er the top amidst a hail of shell To their objective which they knew so well.
On, on, thro' poison gas and rattling roar, Past ulc'rous craters, blackened foul and deep, These comrades 'stuck' as ne'er they had before. And kept together in their rushing sweep; Deafened and rattled, hung up in the wire, Helping each other thro' such fearful fire.