Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Australia Answers

How did you answer England's cry, when it fell upon your ear?
With four hundred thousand fighting men, each one a volunteer!
And where did you come to England's aid, when she called you across the sea?
We came to her at the Anzac Cove--we came at Gallipoli.
We came in the dawn of an April day that was sweet with the young Spring's breath,
And the Hounds of Hell were waiting us there, with a devil's trap of death.

And what did you do to foil the foe, when you reached that steep cliff path?
Go ask the Cyclone to tell you the way it tears through the earth in wrath!
Go ask the Lightning to tell you tale of its felling a forest tree!
Or the terrible story of tidal waves, as they rush inland from the sea!
For that is the way we swept up over the Turks at Gallipoli!

And our dead we left in the devil's trap and our dead we left on the hill
We know are alive on the Other Side, and loving and helping us still.
For the soul of a man who dies for the Right is stronger when free from clay,
And the boys who went down in that April dawn are with us day by day.

Four hundred thousand fighting men--all volunteers to a man!
And each one built in body and mind, on the big Australian plan.
We have the courage that God sends down to earth through open spaces:
Where men can see suns rise and set, and feel the wind on their faces.

And this was the courage that drove us up the cliff through the smoke of guns
To plant our banner upon its peak, and tear down the rag of the Huns.
And it won us the right to wear the name of England's loyal sons.

How did we answer our Mother's call when it fell upon our ear?
With four hundred thousand fighting men, and each one a volunteer! 

1. The Birth of the Orchid
2. The Black Charger
3. All the World
4. At Set of Sun
5. The Call (All wantonly in hours of joy)

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