From Kia-Ora Coo-ee

The magazine for ANZACS in the Middle East
June 1918


OF POETS

Where the tracks are hard and dreary, the tracks are long and dry,
The tropic sun a-beating down from out a cloudless sky;
There's naught to see but sand, at times you'll maybe see a clump
Of palm-trees-it's no wonder that the. camel's got the hump.

A never-ending stretch of sand, to where the sky and land
Meet in line of blue and brown, and poets say it's grand !
But did those blinking poets live as we’ve been forced to live?
If not, then let them have a go, and then their version give.

If poets had to rise at dawn, and feed a blinking horse;
If poets had to eat our grub, plain bully beef, of course;
If poets rode beside us when the way was dry and long;
Arid liked it, let the Poets go and ring their blinking song.

But poets stay at home in ease, and travel not afar
To where the way is lighted by a pale, un­wavering star.
They never scorch or swelter, at the desert never swear;
The reason why's not hard to find, they never have been there.

Now when you hear a poet rave of “ Vast encircling sands,
Whose magnitude is circumscribed by cloudless azure bands
Of Heaven’s vault”, his poesy’s imagination grows;
Just think of all those scorching sands, and bash him on the nose.

Palestine June 1918 By- "TWENTY-TWO".