Dear ABC Great Southern,
Attached is a poem by Stephen Davies who wrote this on the school’s first Anzac Tour in 2007 at the Dawn Service. The school has done a tour every second year since. Each student is required to say a poem at a significant site either at Gallipoli or the Western Front and Steve’s has become the very last poem we recite.
Memories of War by Stephen Davies
We made a monumental journey
Where history does abound.
Over several continents of our world
We walked the battle ground.
The horror of war has hit us hard
What a lucky group we are.
We come in peace and lay a wreath
For the lives that were lost afar.
It was not their land they fought for
They were fighting under orders.
But grave sites show their bodies lay
Within another country’s borders.
On the Western Front, the battle raged
In Belgium and in France.
They gave their lives for us that live
To halt their foe’s advance.
The people there honor them well
For each evening the bugle sounds.
Lest we forget, we all do say
As the last post greets their town.
This morning we gather at ANZAC Cove
Many thousand kindred soul.
To pay our last respects to the fallen men
Who’s bells no longer toll.
We walked amongst the monuments
And read upon the grave.
The senseless loss of such young life
When we visualize their age.
For we are already older
Than some of them that died.
Some of us have gently wept
Most of us have cried.
We feel your spirits on these shores
You will never be alone.
But we leave you now to rest in peace
The fortunate –go home.
Stephen Davies, pre dawn, Gallipoli
Collie Senior High School
Anzac Student Tour 2007
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