Poem - Private William M. McDonald

Camps in the Sands

By Private William M. McDonald

Where the camps all skirt the desert and you trudge across the sand

And you carry loads like camels as you march without a band,

When your water-bottle’s empty and the pack-brace hurts your back,

You will think then of Australia and some greener, fresher track

That you walked in days long vanished, in a sweeter long ago,

When you strolled beside old rivers and you watched their waters flow.

But the country’s call was sounded and you trudge across the sand,

While you think of home and sweetheart—and you march without a band.

There were grand walks in the evening where the bushland voices swell

From the scrubland and the hillsides, from the bell-birds in the dell,

And the scent of eucalyptus and of golden wattle-bloom

Is a memory of the sweetest and a beacon 'mid the gloom

That at time assails the bravest when the discipline cuts deep,

But it’s something, too, to fight for, so the soldier must not sleep.

So you clean your rifle often, and you tramp across the sand,

And you think of someone sometimes as you march without a band.