Ep - and - Ein

Sometimes I risk a faltering step
To meet these -steins, both Ein- and Ep-:
But hesitate and halt at last,
Finding the works of each too vast
For such a finite brain as mine.
They gravel me, both Ep- and Ein-.

Ein-'s themes on space, Ep-'s things in stone
Both leave me gasping. Tho' I own
They're 'after something,' as men say,
What master minds, what years away,
Will fully grasp at last those fine
Profundities of Ep- and Ein-?

I sometimes like to think, if Ep-
Could be induced to take the step,
He might translate and bring in bounds
Vague theories that Ein- propounds
Carve them in stone, that, in the end
Mere fools like me might comprehend.

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Wangaratta

At the meeting of the waters
Where the dark tree shadows play
Wangaratta's sons and daughters
Dream the drowsy hours away;
Placid see the season's greeting
Winter storm and summer sun
Wed, to flow henceforth as one.
Where two northbound rivers meeting,

Long since prone to sudden dangers
When, to dim her dawning pride,
Morgan and his wild bushrangers
Thronged her pleasant countryside,
Now in her quiet graveyard resting
Lies old shame and that rash lad,
Where a mate, on tin attesting,
Pleads that 'he was not all bad.'

Crime and she are almost strangers
Now, since those ill doers died.

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Bush Fire

Let's have a tiny little bush fire.
It's a cold, cold night tonight.
We are sick of this long session
Of the darkness of depression.
And a fire would make things bright.

Just a teeny, weeny little bushfire;
It's easily controlled.
We can sit around and watch it;
If it spreads we'll simply scotch it.
But we must keep out the cold.

Oh, let's have the smallest little bush fire;
It's a fair thing in this storm.
There are plenty here to fight it,
So just strike a match and light it. . . .
Ah! Now we'll all get warm.

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Fire Bugs

Look 'ere. I'll bet a 'arf-a-crown
To anythink you like to name (said Bushy Bill),
If country fellers went to town,
An' burnt a few big buildin's down,
An' quids an' quids went up in flame (said Bushy Bill),
Do you suppose, by any chance,
You'd put it down to ignorance.
An' let 'em go their dilly way
To do the trick some other day? (Said Bushy Bill).
No fear. You'd take that crim'nal lot
An' likely lynch 'em on the spot.
Fine sense of property you got (said Bushy Bill).

Yet city coves come up this way,
Shootin' or goin' campin' out (said Bushy Bill).
But are they careful blokes? Not they.
An' when their camp fire gets away
They wonder what it's all about (said Bushy Bill).
They sling their matches round the place,

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Bright

Where Feathertop frowns thro' the winter scud,
Where Buffalo broods on high,
Dwells she, a lass of royal blood,
And a sparkle lights her eye
The clear, clean glint of the sun on snow,
Where the small streams, singing down,
Into the golden Ovens flow,
To decorate her town.

Wild was she on an olden day
And a wilful lass, forsooth,
When the rough, tough diggers came her way
Ere she emerged from youth.
From her river flats they dredged the gold
And laid sad waste to these,
While they drove in thousands from their fold
The thrifty, scared Chinese.

Waxing in beauty, she has grown
To a maid of wide renown;

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Land Down-Under

At Slumberton-on-Slow,
When the rustics gather round
To quaff their ale, they hear a tale
That wakens doubt profound
A wild, wild tale that comes by mail
From Gaffer Gandy's Joe,
Who left his home long since to roam
In the land of the light pink snow.

And the talk goes to and fro:
'Be goom, laad, that be rich!
Pink snow, he said; an' the rain be red,
But swans be black as pitch!
A great lad for romance
Be Gaffer Gandy's Joe.
Ho, the kangaroo have pockets too!
In the land of the pale pink snow.'

At Slumberton-on-Slow
They yarn in the inn's tapp-room:

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Yellow Tailed Thornbill

I'm a fussy little fellow
In my kilt of glowing yellow;
As about the garden ways I bow and bend.
Many a melody I bring you,
In the soft, gay songs I sing you
With a cheery little grace-note at the end
'Chip, chip.'
Oh, I never miss that grace-note at the end.

Summer into autumn passes,
And among the rippening grasses,
'Mid the midges, goodly provender I gain.
Little for your presence caring,
Confident and greatly daring,
I will charn you with a sudden, sweet refrain
'Chip, chip.'
Oh, a very soft, yet valiant refrain.

When the time has come for nesting,
Our sagacity attesting,

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Bushmen

Rugged men and tough men these,
Men of the lonely ways,
Hard and sturdy as their trees
Where the timbered ranges raise
Their ragged crests to rake the sky;
For the call has come again,
As oft it came in the years gone by,
And the Bush sends forth her men.

Silent men, with eyes alert,
Tramping the hillside steep,
Where the giant trees at the mountain's skirt
Their lonely vigil keep;
Fighting their way where the tangled fern
Covers an ancient track,
Plying the lore that the bushmen learn
Thro' the lonely years outback.

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Listening Week

This is the listening week of the year
Listening-in.
A-cock and alert is the national ear
Listening-in.
All over the land in the country towns,
From the back of the Leeuwin to Darling Downs,
Layers of 'quids' or the odd half-crowns,
They are listening-in.

On the far-flung farms they are round each set,
Listening-in.
The work and the worry they all forget,
Listening-in.
Wherever an aerial soars in space
To the Cup, or the Oaks or the Steeplechase,
To the roar of the ring and the lure of the race
They are listening-in.

In the far outback there are sun-tanned men,
Listening-in.

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Wicket Cricket Critic

If the cricket critics' nagging
Merits stern official gagging
Which I doubt
How would critical ascetics,
With their prosy homiletics,
Shut it out?
And the question then arises:
If more cricketing surprises,
Such as bodyline, begin to threaten cricket,
And another stunt, when sprung,
Call for clicking of the tongue,
Should a cricket critic critically click it?

When the barrackers grow lyric
In a manner most satiric
And profane,
How, one ventures still to wonder,
May the clamor be kept under?
How restrain?
For one barbaric larrik-

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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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