Seager, Alexandrine – March 1918
ANZACS AT JERICHO
Now, once again, we hear the name that sets our hearts aglow —
We read of Anzac horsemen “riding into Jericho,”
And doughty deeds of daring on the shell-swept fields of France.
But “Anzac” is the name that lives in glory and romance.
In France, ‘mid flood of blood and mud, the lads will halt and hail
The gallant name of Anzac, and the Boys who Blazed the Trail.
They battled on o’er weary wastes of dreary desert sand,
With dear, dead comrades left to sleep in that sad, silent land;
And bitter anger in their breasts, as ever on they ride,
At coward slackers safe at home, for whom those glad hearts died,
The longest life that we can live is merely but a span —
Who’d choose a desolate old age when he could die — a Man?
They’re moving from Jerusalem adown the craggy steep,
Past cliffs and boulders, where a goat would barely dare to leap!
An Anzac rush . . . and then the Turk, his hardy courage spent,
Is flying over Jordan with his columns beaten —bent!
“How could our horsemen clear those cliffs, some ask, “without a guide?”
The dauntless dead of Anzac still beside their comrades ride.
