ANZAC Day 2019

Bendigonian Thu 18 Oct 1917
Spring 1917
Oh, the wattle blossom gleams like gold, its
fragrant leaves between –
Shining balls of Nature’s jewels glistening
thro’ the bushland’s green.
But above the piercing perfume which is
flooding all the scene,
I can smell the hellish poison gas in
Flanders.
Oh, the birds are mating gaily in their
sunsteeped nests up high,
And the blackbird’s not is just as sweet
as in the years gone by;
But above the bellbirds singing and the
kookaburra’s cry,
I can hear the guns a-booming there in
Flanders.
Oh, the grass is springin’ fresh and green
beneath our dragging feet,
and the waxflowers and the heather form a
carpet rare and sweet;
yet even as I tread it and go forth the
spring to greet,
I wonder if it grows as green upon the
Graves in Flanders.
-JESSIE CURTIS, Bendigo