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C J Dennis - Come Ye Home
Work rating: Low

Listening (said the old, grey Digger) . . . 
With my finger on the trigger
   I was listening in the trenches on a dark night long ago,
And a lull came in the fighting,
Save a sudden gun-flash lighting
   Some black verge.  And I fell thinking of lost mates I used to know.

Listening, waiting, stern watch keeping,
I heard little whispers creeping
   In from where, `mid fair fields tortured, No-man`s land loomed out before.
And well I knew good mates were lying
There, grim-faced and death-defying,
   In that filth and noisome litter and the horror that was war.

List`ning so, a mood came o`er me;
And `twas like a vision bore me
   To a deeper, lonelier darkness where the souls of dead men roam;
Where they wander, strife unheading;
And I heard a wistful pleading
   Down the lanes where lost men journey: "Come ye home!  Ah, come ye home!"

"Ye who fail, yet triumph failing"
   Ye who fall, yet falling soar
Into realms where, brother hailing
   Brother, bids farewell to war;
Ye for whom this red hell ended,
   With the last great, shuddering breath.
In the mute, uncomprehended,
   Dreamful dignity of death;
Back to your own land`s sweet breast
Come ye home, lads -- home to rest."

Listening in my old bush shanty -
(Said grey Digger) living`s scanty
   These dark days for won-out soldiers and I`d not the luck of some --
But from out the ether coming
I could hear a vast crowd`s humming
   Hear the singing, then -- the Silence.  And I knew the Hour had come.

Listening, silent as I waited,
And the picture recreated,
   I could see the kneeling thousands by the Shrine`s approaches there.
Then, above those heads low-bending,
Like an orison ascending,
   Saw a multitude`s great yearning rise into the quivering air.

Listening so, again the seeming
Of a vision came; and dreaming
   There, I saw from out high Heaven spread above the great Shrine`s dome,
From the wide skies overarching 
I beheld battalions marching --
   Mates of mine!  My comrades, singing: Coming home!  Coming home!

"We who bore the cost of glory,
   We who paid the price of peace,
Now that, from this earth, war`s story
   Shall, please God, for ever cease,
To this Shrine that you have lifted
   For a symbol and a sign
Of men`s hearts, come we who drifted
   Thro` long years, oh, mates of mine!
To earth, my brothers` grieving blest
Now come we home, lads -- home to rest."
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