These times dictate our song;
Our words must reply to shells,
Our lines shall assault new ills
Entrenched in ancient wrong.
Yet standing to I’ve seen
The pale flower of dawn expand
Full blown from a darkened land,
Where day could show no green.
And I have heard left over,
When the morning strafe was done,
A bird like a violine
Stilled brass and bass discover;
Standing in trench of mud
A man saying with grim grin,
“As opposite to this sin
Perhaps this is a God.”
This then gives leave or duty
To sing of imagined good,
From the mask of fortitude
To give a voice to beauty.
From: Serle, Percival, An Australasian Anthology (Australian and New Zealand Poems), 1946, Collins Bros & Co Ltd: Sydney and Auckland, p. 288.
(https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.50269/)
Date: 1941
By: Leonard Mann (1895-1981)