PAYING THE PRICE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3998, 3 August 1915, Page 3

PAYING THE PRICE.

From office and from counting-house, from testing-room and bench, From University and school they wciuto man the trench. From cricket pitch and tennis lawn, from driving at the goal. From where the silken jackets gleam, from where the breakers roll. From sweat and dust of drafting yards, from paddocks wide and free. . . Whore many days the bit-nngs chiint'd. the company., They heard’the call, ami answered it, as strong men ever will; They answered each with ready \ oice ‘__a voice that now is still.

The lordly mansion knows its grief, the backyard tenement Is shedding scalding tears for those whom bravely they have sent. The spacious street, the narrow way, the garden, and the lane, The open spaces ot the west are sisteis - in their pain ; And we, who watched them march away, who saw our brothers go. Are suffering with their kith and kin, and weeping with their woe, In sorrow for Australia. 5 s sons, yuo for Australia died. In fullest joy of youth and strength, and all a strong man’s pride.

For those whose hands were grasped and held in friendship’s manly grip. With deep affection in Uio eye. and laughter on the lip; For those we often played beside, where rocks the roaring crowd ; The men who never failed to score whenever chance allowed; For those who studied through the night to take the best, degree, And now have laid tneir learning down on grim Gallipoli ; For those who pulled the strongest- oar where salt the water flow s In victory or in defeat; and yet again

The. hoys who dreamed, as horsemen will, across the sun-scorched plains, The saddle loose betwixt their knees. their hands upon the reins. Tins men who saw the sun go down, and watched the Queen of NightShed glorious o’er the glistening gums her stall and peaceful light, They're lying now upon the hills ot von Gallipoli, Gold hands that- could not hold t'e reins, glazed eyes that cannot see;

The soft winds still breathe over them, the night winds that they know, _ And gently whisper as they dal far oil and long ago.

’Twos not for glnrv that they died; they heard the children’s wail. They hoard the ■ maidens’ maddened cries, they heard and could not fail. . 0, Night Winds! Tell those mates ot ours, as von alone can toll, That we who’still can hold the reins, will light, for those who fell, That we who still may have the strength to tread the path they trod, Shall hold the. heritage they left as •sacred before God Shall be as men to shield the weak, with this, our battle cry, “-For those we. love, for those who fell, and for the flag we’ll die.”