The Daily Mercury in Mackay, Queensland, featured the following ode to the lost light cruiser HMAS Sydney (II), sunk with all hands off the Western Australian coast on 19 November 1941. This edition of the Daily Mercury was dated Saturday, 11 April 1942.
HMAS SYDNEY
She may not come back, in triumph of bunting or of bell,
With a victor’s pride about her, as she breasts the harbour swell.
There will be no bands a playing, no whistle piping clear,
No weeping crowds aswaylng as she swings aside the pier.
But at midnight in the silence, when the very stars are dark,
She may come again to moorings, a ghostly phantom barque.
Though she lies in floods unfathomed, we may seem to see once more,
Her silver shape go shining down the path she trod before.
Not in fury, not in peril of battle or of crag,
But with life-breath in her funnel, and with flutter in her flag.
And the eyes of her last company seem bright and valiant yet, Ah! the iron ship shall moulder ‘ere the hearts at home
forget.
