Vonda Stanley's collection of early Australian bush poems
From the George Bateman Collection, copiled by Howard Rose.
SINGAPORE
They grouped together about their chief,
And each looked at his mate,
Ashamed to think Australian men,
Should meet such a bitter fate,
And black was the wrath in each man’s heart,
And savage oaths they swore,
As they thought of how they had been ditched,
By impregnable Singapore.
In her vaunted place, she squatted by the sea,
On a base that was Maginot bred.
Her startled face looked up at the sky,
To the enemy planes overhead,
Enemy planes , when ours were where?,
That cry we had heard before,
Our hearts were wrung ,as it rose this time,
From beleaguered Singapore
She bought forth death , as her eldest child,
With defeat as her second son,
Then she hung white flags on a staff,
To show that her tasks were done,
And sick with rage the Australians stood,
And God, how the Anzacs swore,
Bennett and all his men alike,
At the fall of Singapore.
Who was at fault , they betrayed our troops?
Who was at fault she failed ,
That once to the mast it was nailed,
Tell them, we’ll raise it on Anzac soil,
With hearts that are steeled to the core,
We swear by our dead and captive sons,
Revenge for Singapore.
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