The Australian (Ogilvie poem)

"The bravest thing God ever made." — A British officer's opinion.

The skies that arched his land were blue,
 * His bush-born winds were warm and sweet,

And yet from earliest hours he knew
 * The tides of victory and defeat;

From fierce floods thundering at his birth,
 * From red droughts ravening while he played,

He learned to fear go foes on earth—
 * "The bravest thing God ever made!"

The bugles of the Motherland
 * Rang ceaselessly across the sea,

To call him and his lean brown band
 * To shape Imperial destiny;

He went, by youth's grave purpose willed,
 * The goal unknown, the cost unweighed

The promise of his blood fulfilled—
 * "The bravest thing God ever made!"

We know—it is our deathless pride!—
 * The splendor of his first fierce blow;

How reckless, glorious, undenied,
 * He stormed those steel-lined cliffs we know!

And none who saw him scale the height
 * Behind his recking bayonet-blade

Would rob him of his title-right—
 * '"The bravest thing God ever made!"

Bravest, where half a world of men
 * Are brave beyond all earth's rewards,

So stoutly none shall charge again
 * Till the last breaking of the swords;

Wounded or hale, won home from war,
 * Or yonder by the Lone Pine laid,

Give him his due for evermore—
 * "'The bravest thing God ever made!"