Bodies for sale and no buyers

O, God, what have we done ?

Doomed to the endless treadmill

Under a blazing sun.

Humping a hateful burden

down a long unfriendly track

On a road that leads to nowhere

then to turn and hump it back.

Farmer and Mason and Digger

Miner and Parson and Clerk

Each of them only asking

for their right to live and work.

To think that this youngest country

This rich and smiling land

Has been sold like a slave to bondage

by the base Law Makers hand.

And her sons and daughters suffer

from East to Western Sea,

But the day is quickly coming

when they will, again, be free.

When we rise and rout the traitors

and smite them hip and thigh

and write EMANCIPATION

in blood, across the sky.

And reduce our wretched forums

To heaps of ash and stone,

And build a Legislature

strong enough to stand alone.

With WORK for all who want it

and payment for our toil.

The Parson to his pulpit,

The Farmer to his soil.

The Miner and the Digger,

Each will play his part

When we cut this growing rot spot

From out Australia's heart.

"805" Chas HARRIS, Tambo Qld 26 Aug 1930

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The History of the 42nd Australian Infantry Battalion in WW1