Like rose upon the stem that stays...”

When looking through her adoptive mother Hilda Archer Johnson’s belongings, Riverside’s June Hazzlewood happened upon somewhat of a “treasure”.

Stashed away were two copies of her uncle Bernard Joseph Archer’s book of poems, ‘Singing Bird and Battlefield’, published by The Examiner.

The exact date of publication is unknown, but it is believed it could have been 1922.

Hilda was the youngest of three children, and her brother, Bernard, would become a soldier poet while serving in World War I.

He was born in Queensland in 1897, and, as a child, moved with his family to his father’s ancestral home ‘Panshanger’, a grazing property in the Longford district, before moving to Gravelly Beach.

“When World War I broke out, my brother Bernard was still at Launceston Grammar,” Hilda wrote in her own book, Bygone Days on the Tamar.

“Bernard packed away his books and enlisted in the 12^th Battalion A.I.F. and was sent to Claremont Camp, Hobart, to train and had his eighteenth birthday at sea two days after they sailed.”

Archer served in Egypt, before spending three years in France, where he was wounded at Bullecourt.

He was sent to England, where he spent three-and-a-half months in hospital, before being returned to Australia. Archer was discharged on January 9, 1918, on the grounds of ill health, Hilda wrote.

“During the war years, Bernard started writing poetry, on board ship, in hospital or wherever possible.

“On his return he published a little book entitled, ‘Singing Bird and Battlefield’, which was the forerunner of widespread publication of his poems.”

“The winter clouds have rolled away,

And summer sun streams down once more;

The brightness of its slanting ray

Has cast my sorrow on before.

I walk the Western battlefield,

The enemies’ but yesterday;

How many here their lives have sealed,

To rest in peace this sunny day!

The larks above pour forth their song

In loving praise from silver throats,

And from a tree all proud and strong

Australia’s glorious ensign floats.

A square of graves upon the rise

Show those who, fighting, paid the price,

Unlike the flower whose beauty dies,

In glory lives their sacrifice.

With death and ruin all around,

What is it makes me joyful be

Why do the trumpets loudly sound?

’Tis battle won, ’tis victory!”

‘Victory’ is the opening poem in ‘Singing Bird and Battlefield’, and was written by Archer in Fremycourt, France.

In a letter to his mother, printed as the foreword in his book of poems, Archer wrote about his inspiration for the verses:

“On the deep mud battlefields of France, on the marshy swamps of Flanders, where enemy flares floated high upon the night, and guided the great guns that ever boomed their power, mid the terrors of hell upon earth, I wrote in this book my first lines of verse.

“And then, in the hospitals of France, and later the hospitals of England, where fair sisters watched through the long night like Guardian Angels robed in white, I wrote the middle portion, and, sailing home via Africa to this great free land, Australia, I continue to write, till finally, in the garden of my own home, I complete for you this book, to you who in younger life taught me all that was sacred and beautiful in this world and the world to come, and, passing through the temptations and vices of a foreign world, I return unscathed, because of my great love for you, my mother.

“Ever your loving son, Bernard.”

“The loud, cruel guns of bitter war

My cares no longer smote,

As on the pier I lightly stepped

From off the river boat.

My mother waited for me there,

My sisters by her side;

Her dear face seemed as young and fresh

As ere I crossed the tide.

I heard her voice say: Welcome home!

I felt her lips on mine,

And ’neath the light of summer skies

I kissed each sister mine.

The garden gate swung open wide,

Then closed upon our wake,

And willows meeting overhead

Did archways o’er us make.

And, passing up the gravel path,

Through rose trees growing tall,

Glad laughter on the summer air

Lit up the face of all.

If happiness is fuller found

With angels up above,

My heaven is on earth below,

With those I dearly love."

The final poem in the book, ‘The Homecoming’, was written by Archer at Gravelly Beach, when he returned to Tasmania.

After returning from Europe, Archer resumed civil life as a fruit farmer in the Tamar Valley, according to an obituary that appeared in the Brisbane ‘Courier’ in 1930.

The farming work, however, was too hard due to his illness, and he moved to Queensland.

Eventually, Archer’s ill health meant he had to go into the Red Cross Home at Ardoyne, and he died in June 1930, aged in his 30s.