A Poem for ANZAC Day

 Found in my Facebook memories.

Grant Goldman Editorial Tuesday, April 2016

I promised that as we approach Anzac Day I will share with you some of the very moving poetry of the Great War.

Jessie Pope was born in Leicester in 1868, and her poetry became especially popular in New Zealand, where her work was first published in 1903. One of the few ladies to be widely known for writing contemporary poetry about the Great War, Jessie Pope is also one of the few English war poets to recognise ANZAC feats of bravery and their ‘imperishable renown’ in verse.

Although I am unaware that she ever visited New Zealand, Jessie Pope was certainly been adopted there as a greatly loved and much admired popular New Zealand poet. So I am very pleased to present for you some verse from Jessie Pope as a tribute to our brave New Zealand allies.

From Papers Past at the National Library of New Zealand, here is Jessie Pope’s poem, ANZAC.

We know that you’re sportsmen, with reason,

At footer and cricket you’re crack;

I haven’t forgotten the season

When we curled up before the “All Blacks.”

In the matter of wielding the “willow,”

We own, to our cost, that you’re it,

The “ashes” you’ve borne o’er the billow—

Though they’re home again now, for a bit.

There are weightier matters to settle

To-day, amid bullets and shells;

And the world stands amazed at the mettle

You’ve shown in the far Dardanelles.

The marvellous feat of your landing

Your exploits by field and by deed,

Your charges that brooked no withstanding,

Though you poured out the best of your blood.

You left your snug homesteads “down under”;

The prosperous life of your land,

And staggered the Turks with your thunder,

To give the Old Country a hand.

For dare-devil work we may book you,

You’re ready and keen to get to it.

If a job is impossible, look you,

The boys from “down under” will do it.

That poem by Jessica Pope appeared in the Daily Express on 16 November 1915.

You have heard me say before that if the politicians had listened to the Poets of the Great War, there would never have been a Second World War. Thank you Jessie Pope.