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.
We all knew this when I was at school in the 50's or as I should say,10 BPC.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
I too remember this Poem from 1950 1 year after my family had migrated to Australia as part of the assisted immigration scheme from Britain. The poem was the first I committed to memory (other than nursery rhymes) and led to a life long interest in poetry. It also helped me feel feel proud of my new Australian Identity. Many years later I found out that my fathers first cousin Phillip had fought and died with the Royal Irish Rifles at Gallipoli.
Martin, an inspiring comment on your introduction to Australa