Vonda Stanley's collection of early Australian bush poems

 

THE FARMER REMEMBERS THE SOMME

Will they never fade or pass!

The mud, and the misty figures endlessly coming

In file through the foul morass,

And the grey flood-eater lipping the reeds and grass,

At the the steel wings drumming.

The hills are bright in the sun:

There's nothing changed or marred in the well-known places;

When work for the day is done

There's talk, and quiet laughter, and the gleams of fun

On the old folks' faces.

I have returned to these:

The farm, and the kindly Bush, and the young calves lowing;

But all that my mind sees

Is a quaking bog in a mist---stark, snapped trees,

And the dark Somme flowing.

Vance Palmer (1885-1959)