Two Strong Arms   -Eric Bogle      In the still heat of the afternoon   Kritos was laid to rest   in the dry and dusty red soil of Australia   As the Mulberry and Cypress bloomed   beneath the mountain crests   so far away in Macedonia      The children of his heart   and the children of his blood   In sorrow and in silence    and in pride, around him stood   All his sons and daughters with   their daughters and their sons,   The Family of the man with two strong arms      Born a peasant's son on a mountain farm   where a thin and grudging earth   made hunger a gray ghost at every meal   where life was just a grinding stone   of poverty and death   that crushed young and old alike   beneath the wheel      So before the wheel could turn   with his family and his wife   Kristos came down from the mountains   searching for a better life   Bringing only hopes and dreams with him   to the distant southern land   And a brave and willing heart,   and two strong arms      In a West Australian country town   Kristos found a job   for men willing to work hard   and bend their backs   Cutting the lofty gum trees down,   clearing brush and scrub   Where speaking English mattered less   than a good sharp axe      Driven by his dreams   as the hard years came and went   Kristos bent his back to every   daylight hour that got sent   How many golden wheat fields grow?   how many western farms?   The rich harvest of the man   with two strong arms      He worked to keep his family fed and clothed   to give his kids the chance   for them to try and be all they could be   So that unlike him they'd never know   the chains of ignorance   or taste the bitter bread of poverty      He wanted them to have   all the things he'd never had   And if all that took was blood and sweat   He'd give both and be glad   He lived to watch his children grow   and match their father's dreams   All it took was love and pride   and two strong arms      In the still heat of the afternoon   Kritos was laid to rest   in the dry and dusty red soil of Australia   As the Mulberry and Cypress bloomed   beneath the mountain crests   so far away in Macedonia      The children of his heart   and the children of his blood   In sorrow and in silence    and in pride, around him stood   All his sons and daughters with   their daughters and their sons,   The Family of the man with two strong arms   The Family of the man with two strong arms