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The Kia ora coo-ee : the magazine for the ANZACS in the Middle East, 1918

Of Poets

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 a like of blue of brown, and poets say it's grand!
But did these 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
And liked it, let the Poets go and sing 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.