Versamelde gedigte

The return of the First Division

The lads who left for Libya,

(Oh let your bugles play!)

The lads who held El'Alamein,
And garnered from the desert plain
Some sheaves of honour's golden grain,

Are coming back to-day!

The lads who left for Libya

Are coming home to-day!

Not all! Of those that went are some
Whose eyes are shut, whose voices dumb,
Who, being dead, will never come

To hear our bugles play.

The lads who left for Libya

Are coming home to-day.

They went because they heard the call
That came, and echoes still, for all
To answer lest our ramparts fall

And what we love decay.

Forget not, in the years to be,
They gave of life unselfishly;
In simple faith and loyalty

They went upon their way.

And brook not carping tongues shall dare
To doubt the splendour of their share,
Or smirch the token that they wear.

On their home-coming day.

Cape Times, 10 Maart 1943.