The State Secretary of the Returned Soldiers' League (Mr. C. W. Joyce) has lately stated that there is an anti-soldier feeling among the younger generation, much of it open and flagrant. The country's population today holds 55 per cent. of young people who were either not born or were too young to understand its meaning when the war was being fought.
Bland youth, to whom the War is but a story
Told by the elders round the winter fire,
A tale of ancient fear and tarnished glory
And quaint heroes of some grey-bearded sire,
Are you so safe that you can laugh at battle?
Are you so sure your world today is sane?
Are you so deaf that, tho' the sabres rattle
Even today, you count all portents vain?
So were we safe, and deemed our generations
Secure in sanity; so were we sure,
A score of years ago, no war-mad nation
Could rouse a whole world's anger, and endure.
So were we young, with all youth's scornful laughter.
Now we are old; not too old to forget
Unheeded beacon fires and and what came after ...
And still grim Armageddon is not yet.
If you have gods, thank them, with thanks o'erflowing,
First, that your path thus far has known no thorn;
Then pray. Pray you may never come to knowing
The bloody baptism that men you scorn
Have known, and lived -- lived on to bear the stricture
Of beardless youth. Pray that this world you deem
So sane, so sure, may shape war to your picture --
The phantasy of some spent grey-beard's dream.
First published in The Herald, 27 February 1933
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
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