2. Futility, by Wilfred Owen

3. Distant Fields / ANZAC Parade, by Rhian Gallagher
4. Sleep, by Kenneth Slessor
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2. Homecoming, by Lenrie Peters

3. I Years had been from Home, by Emily Dickinson
4. Farewell, Ungrateful Traitor, by John Dryden
5. A Complaint, by William Wordsworth
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            Ere the sorrow comes with years?

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,––

            And that cannot stop their tears. 

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows; 

  The young birds are chirping in the nest;

The young fawns are playing with the shadows; 

  The young flowers are blowing toward the west––

But the young, young children, O my brothers, 

            They are weeping bitterly!–– 

They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 

            In the country of the free. 

 

Do you question the young children in the sorrow, 

            Why their tears are falling so?––

The old man may weep for his to-morrow

            Which is lost in Long Ago–– 

The old tree is leafless in the forest–– 

  The old year is ending in the frost––

The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest–– 

  The old hope is hardest to be lost: 

But the young, young children, O my brothers, 

            Do you ask them why they stand

Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, 

            In our happy fatherland?

A Shroud as well as a Shirt.

"But why do I talk of Death!

That Phantom of grisly bone,

I hardly fear his terrible shape,

It seems so like my own—

It seems so like my own,

Because of the fasts I keep;

O God! that bread should be so dear,

And flesh and blood so cheap!

"Work—work—work!

My labour never flags;

And what are its wages? A bed of straw,

A crust of bread—and rags.

That shatter'd roof,—and this naked floor—

A table—a broken chair—

And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank

For sometimes falling there!

"Work—work—work!

From weary chime to chime,

Work—work—work—

As prisoners work for crime!

Band, and gusset, and seam,

Seam, and gusset, and band,

Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd,

As well as the weary hand.

"Work—work—work,

In the dull December light,

And work—work—work,

When the weather is warm and bright—

While underneath the eaves

The brooding swallows cling,

As if to show me their sunny backs

And twit me with the spring.

"O, but to breathe the breath

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet!—

With the sky above my head,

And the grass beneath my feet;

For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want

And the walk that costs a meal!

"O, but for one short hour!

A respite however brief!

No blessed leisure for Love or Hope,

But only time for Grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart,

But in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop

Hinders needle and thread!

"Seam, and gusset, and band,

Band, and gusset, and seam,

Work, work, work,

Like the Engine that works by Steam!

A mere machine of iron and wood

That toils for Mammon's sake—

Without a brain to ponder and craze

Or a heart to feel—and break!"

—With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,

A Woman sat, in unwomanly rags,

Plying her needle and thread—

Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,—

Would that its tone could reach the Rich!—
She sand this "Song of the Shirt!"