Gecko, your friend may also be interested in this CICELY FOX SMITH poem about the ANZACS.
It has been beautifully set to music by Martyn Windham-Read

FAREWELL TO ANZAC
(Cicely Fox Smith)

Oh, hump your swag and leave, lads, the ships are in the bay —
We've got our marching orders now, it's time to come away —
And a long good-bye to Anzac Beach — where blood has flowed in vain
for we're leaving it, leaving it, game to fight again!
But some there are will never quit this bleak and bloody shore —
and some that marched and fought with us will fight and march no more;
their blood has bought til Judgment Day the slopes they stormed so well,
and we're leaving them, leaving them, sleeping where they fell.

Leaving them, leaving them — the bravest and the best —
leaving them, leaving them, and maybe glad to rest!

We did our best with yesterday, tomorrow's still our own —
But we're leaving them, leaving them, sleeping all alone.
Ay, they are gone beyond it all, the praising and the blame
and many a man may win renown, but none more fair a fame;
They showed the world Australia's lads knew well the way to die;
and we're leaving them, leaving them, quiet where they lie.

Leaving them, leaving them sleeping where they lie —
Leaving them, leaving them, in their glory and their pride.
Round the sea and barren land, over them the sky —
Oh! We're leaving them, leaving them, so quiet where they lie.

Notes:

From a book of World War 1 poetry called WAR VERSE, edited by Frank Foxcroft, published by Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York, US, © 1918, pp. 153-154, and originally printed in the magazine "The Spectator."

This poem focuses on the abandonment of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in 1916. Thousands of Australian troops were mowed down by the Turks, and their were bitter recriminations resulting from this failed invasion.

Charley Noble

bradfordian (sans cookie)