The following poem is written by an anonymous soldier from Olinda who went under the pen name ‘Aussie’ and sent to The Lilydale Express to be published –

A DAY OFF IN ENGLAND 

When I was free of the camp,
It was my joy for a day
Along the hedge-lined road to tramp,
And mark beside the way,
Age old houses set in trees
Almost as old as they. 

To enter some quaint old inn –
Partake its homely store –
Where all without and all within
Seemed built for evermore,
Where e’en the barns and stables
Were oak from roof to floor. 

To see what Dickens saw,
Who limn’d with human pen,
That love and kindly social law,
Which saves the Englishmen,
From ‘Nature red in tooth and claw’,
And draws the world to them.

To sit in some old fane,
And hear the organ sound,
Forgetful of all pain,
While plunged in muse profound,
And feel that life is not so vain,
Where there’s such holy ground. 

Though on the tented plain,
Not many miles away,
A host is getting into train,
To join the awful fray.
Thanks, thanks again and yet again,
Old England for a day.