November 11th 2017

        
In remembrance of those who fell in the Great War 1914 to 1918.

               Cy Daniel

Cy Daniel was a drover,

A simple cattle drover

Contented with the only life he knew.

By a field he lived alone

In a shack that was his home,

Always smiling ’though his pleasures were so few.

Then one day the army came

And they called Cy Daniel’s name

For they needed him to help to fight a war.

“Every able bodied man

Has to fight the best he can,

It’s his duty” said the sergeant, “and the law.”

Although much averse to killing

He accepted his King’s shilling

But Cy Daniel felt an ache within his breast.

While the people who defiled him

Only rubber stamped and filed him.

Now he was just a number like the rest.

They also took the cattle

To sustain the men in battle.

Very grateful that their stomachs would be fed,

In a cart the soldiers piled them

Then they rubber stamped and filed them.

Cy Daniel, he was overcome with dread.

When the captain gave the order

To assemble on the border,

Cy Daniel, he marched forward with his gun

And, positioned with the others,  

All the fathers, sons and brothers,

Together they fought bravely, every one.

As the seasons came and went

Many soldiers’ lives were spent

But Cy Daniel bore a wound that didn’t bleed.

With each foe man that was slain

’Twas his soul that felt the pain

Of his anguish as he carried out the deed.

Then the enemy retreated

For their army was depleted.

All ‘survivors’ gladly took the homeward road.

Now hostilities were over,

Not the soldier but the drover,

Cy Daniel, too, returned to his abode.

There a bitter blow was dealt

For the shack where he had dwelt

Was no longer in its place beside the field.

Cy Daniel’s mind was crazed

When he found it had been razed,

And this, the final blow, it never healed.

Too much for him to take,

(Even stronger men would break)

Cy Daniel, he completely lost his mind.

He wandered driving cattle

…Imaginary cattle…

The doctor said, “Committal must be signed.”

When locked up in that asylum,

(Where they rubber stamp and file them)

Cy Daniel found his own peculiar peace.

In his tiny, airless cell,

Not the drover, but his shell,

Tended cattle night and day ’til his ‘release.’

Yes; he died in that asylum,

(Where they rubber stamp and file them)

Then Cy Daniel he was covered up with earth.

’Though his country he had died for

There was not a man who cried, for,

Being strangers, they had never known his worth.

His mortal life is over

But the simple cattle drover,

Cy Daniel, he looks down upon the crowds.

In the company of others

All the fathers, sons and brothers,

Tending cattle in the fields above the clouds.

Sandra Yates