In bib ‘n brace from Warwick hall,
Just twenty eight would start the call,
With canvas hat they marched in file,
No fear they’ll show beneath broad smile,
For this a war ne’er seen before,
No words or dreams can warn young men,
Just what this war shall hold in store,
So many boys in bib ‘n brace, so many tears their mothers face.
Their numbers increase as they march on,
Through Clifton, Toowoomba and Grantham town,
With more to join their ragged band,
Their fearless dreams shall never wane,
They march through Laidley’s clapping hands,
Then into Ipswich, and Brisbane’s grand,
But this war was soon to take them,
These young boys, with dreams in their eyes,
And volunteering men.
In sickening death their dreams pass by,
Their friends and neighbors, and brothers all,
In fields they died having answered the call.
What has happened to those dreams,
Beneath that warm November sky,
My God has forsaken these boys it seems,
Some so young they couldn’t vote,
But I wonder, were their words in that letter,
One brave dying soldier wrote.
May God forgive me, fo I have taken,
Some grieving mothers son,
While leaving her to wonder,
If my soul’s now blackened, for what I’ve done.
I pray this burning pain from bullet that I feel,
Is God’s forgiveness, while in this trench I kneel,
With dreams now scattered, she should not wonder,
For soon ‘tis I shall meet her son,
For soon my life will be no longer,
And all our dreams be gone.
adthomas