DAWN PARADE

Wanganui Chronicle, 22 April 1950, Page 4

DAWN PARADE

Push back the fingers of encroaching sleep, And let Reveille echo in your heart This is your hour, the vigil you must Keep, Amid the greying dark the columns start, And where the pipes cut skirling through the mist, They go with measured tread to keep their tryst.

This is a holy nour. The shadowed stone Stands black against the paling Eastern sky. So many hours like this, when men made one In comradeship ot arms went out to die. Remembering, the}: stare across the years, And watch tl.e dawn fling up its glowing spears.

This is the solemn hour of consecration, The jesting laid aside, the silenced boast, Of faith renewed, of quiet dedication, Of promise to that deathless phantom host. And in the dawn their waiting ranks draw near, Their forgotten eyes are strangely clear.

The flowers glow against the cold grey stone, Upon the hill the columns wheel, move down, And hearts that kept the vigil all alone Will hear the pipes go crying through the town, Hearts that once waited, hoped, despaired, and bled— Remembering their ever-living d»ad.

NANCY BRUCE, Wanganui, April 22, 1950.