Poem - Jessie Pope

An Anzac Poem

By Jessie Pope

Why do we cheer those brown-faced boys with pride,

Why do dense crowds press round on every side,

Why do we throw them flowers, our hearts aglow?

Well—turn a minute to three years ago.

A moonlit beach—a cliff of scrub and bush—

The creeping, crowded boats—a breathless hush—,

A crunch of keels —a leap, a shallow splash—

And then Inferno, thunder, blaze and crash.

“Straight as a bayonet”—riddled where they fell;

Hacking the wire, across that strip of Hell;

Those untried heroes—husky and blood-drenched—

Hurled back the Turkish outposts —and entrenched!

The thing that was impossible was done!

From the beginning thus have Britons won.

So, year by year, in words of fire and gold,

The Anzacs’ glorious landing shall be told