The Price

In strongly supporting the Anzac Square War Memorial scheme, Mr W. M. Hughes says that we should be prepared to pay the price, however great, in remembrance of those who paid the price for Australia.

What’s the price of Melbourne town? What’s the price of life?
Were we jotting figures down in the midst of strife?
Were we casting up accounts, heedless of the fray,
Busy with our ledgers as the soldiers marched away?

Nine years, ten years, twelve years ago,
Which of us insisted that the reckoning be low?
Ten years, twelve years, twenty years to come,
Will there still be whining o’er the total of the sum?

If are we quite forgotten all? Are we growing mean?
Are we so forgetful of a war-time scene,
When the boys were tramping on, down a city street.
Sun upon the bayonets, sound of marching feet —

Strong men, brave men, men to make, us proud!
Marching to the troopship thro’ a cheering crowd.
Great men! Fine men! Heroes of the day!
Were we counting up the cost as they marched away?

Were we counting up the cost as they drifted back:
Maimed men, torn men, bits of battle wrack?
Were we bent above our books, jotting down each name,
Counting cost of broken men, and— men who never came?

Had they stayed for bargaining where had been our name?
They who played so eagerly at life’s grimmest game
Paid a price unswervingly that gifts might increase
For who stay behind today lapped in easy peace.

Lapped in easy peace we are; careless of the past;
Heedless of the victory dearly bought at last;
Young men, strong men flung to baulk a foe
Nine years, ten years, twelve years ago.

Grant it be not said of us in some other day:
“They accepted sacrifice, yet they failed to pay;
Conning o’er their ledgers, counting up the cost —
A nation who, with all else won, learned her soul was lost.”

“C. J. Dennis”
Herald, 22 March 1927, p6