Anzac Day

By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics and access other forums reserved for members. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today by clicking here.

Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 1:29 pm

Next Tuesday is Anzac Day.

On that day Australia and New Zealand pause to commemorate those who died in war and to honour those who serve.

At a time when the world seems to be more and more in the grasp of liars, demagogues, power-seekers and fools, its lessons on the horrors of conflict and the folly of ambition are never more relevant.

Those heroes that shed their blood
and lost their lives;
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies
and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side
here in this country of ours.
You, the mothers,
who sent their sons from far away countries,
wipe away your tears;
your sons are now lying in our bosom
and are in peace.
After having lost their lives on this land they have
become our sons as well.

Mustapha Kemal Ataturk
1934

Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 11:01 pm

Many respects.

Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 11:26 pm

Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2017 1:50 am

ANZAC COVE

There's a lonely stretch of hillocks
There's a beach asleep and drear:
There's a battered broken fort beside the sea.
There are sunken trampled graves:
And a little rotting pier:
And winding paths that wind unceasingly.

There's a torn and silent valley:
There's a tiny rivulet
With some blood upon the stones beside its mouth.
There are lines of buried bones:
There's an unpaid waiting debt:
There's a sound of gentle sobbing in the South.

Leon Gellert

TO A TRAVELLER

Stop traveller! Unbeknownst to you this ground
You come and tread on, is where an epoch lies;
Bend down and lend your ear, for this silent mound
Is the place where the heart of a nation sighs.

To the left of this deserted shadeless lane
The Anatolian slope now observe you well;
For liberty and honour, it is, in pain,
Where wounded Mehmet laid down his life and fell.

This very mound, when violently shook the land,
When the last bit of earth passed from hand to hand,
And when Mehmet drowned the enemy in flood,
Is the spot where he added his own pure blood.

Think, the consecrated blood and flesh and bone
That make up this mould, is where a whole nation,
After a harsh and pitiless war; alone
Tasted the juice of freedom with elation.

Necmettin Halil Onan