A Duty Fulfilled Byram de Campo Khan, Year 12 I hunker down in the trench To the guard of my rifle I desperately clench It’s cold steel giving little hope As mud lathers me slipping down the slope How I ate up that glorious rhetoric Now to see my friends drowning in chloric Shells raining down like a winter England day Sought out and hunted like prey A crescendo of bullets smashing us like hail Gagging on his own blood a young male Soon a hopeful mother will be told The splendid lie of old In letter with care handwritten That her son was a hero soldier of Britain. On Contemplating the Ocean Harry Hewitt, Year 11 Accuse no man to know Your tremendous boundary. Your depth so great one can’t Even picture thy scope, Your fingers stretch from the Closest coast to far lands. Your palms so snug, so fixed Surge laps across the sand. Provide passage for those That need it most, but you’ve Might no man will contest. Light fails to impale you. Your water splendid, holy. I welcome the ocean’s embrace, slowly.