Poets
Each poet that I know (he said)
Has something funny in his head,
Some wandering growth or queer disease
That gives to him strange unease.
If such a thing he hasn't got,
What makes him write his silly rot?
All poets' brains, so I have found,
Go, like the music, round and round.
Why they are suffered e'er to tread
This sane man's earth seems strange (he said).
I've never met a poet yet,
A rhymster I have never met
Who could talk sense like any man -
Like I, or even you, say, can.
They make me sick! The time seems ripe
To clean them up and all their tripe.
And yet (he stopped and felt his head)
I met a poet once (he said)
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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Jim Of Maribyrnong
They were forthright days when Jim was born,
When they called a spade a spade.
And statesmen held in lofty scorn
he trickster's sticky trade.
For their eyes were clear and their views were strong,
And they'd be no party's too!
And big, bluff Jim of Maribyrnong
Learned wisdom in this school.
For black was black, and white was white,
When good Victoria reigned,
And argument made no wrong right,
No demagogue explained
That good might ever come of wrong,
Or black be painted white,
When big, bluff Jim of Maribyrnong
Went out to fight the fight.
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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Shorter Week
I worked for fifty hours a week,
And someone said to me,
'Don't be a serf! Throw off your chains,
And show the world you're free!'
So I cut down my working hours
And found, upon the whole,
The leisure time I had to spare
Good for my body's carking care,
And better for my soul.
I worked for forty hours a week,
And someone said to me,
'Release your bonds, you shackled slave!
Show all the world you're free!'
So I reduced my working hours
And found in leisured lull,
The more I sought to play, the more
Amusement had become a bore,
And life was rather dull.
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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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To a Dead Mate
There's many a man who rides today
In the lonely, far out-back;
There's many a man who makes his way
On a dusty bushland track;
There's many a man in bush and town
Who mourns for a good mate gone;
There are eyes grown sad and heads cast down
Since Henry has passed on.
A mate he was, and a mate to love,
For mateship was his creed:
With a strong, true heart and a soul above
This sad world's sordid greed.
He lived as a mate, and wrote as a mate
Of the things which he believed.
Now many a good man mourns his fate,
And he leaves a nation grieved.
True champion he of the lame and halt:
True knight of the poor was he,
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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Wonga Pigeon
Men knew and loved my calling in old days
Days ere a bitter wisdom taught me fear.
Trusting and unafraid, I went my ways
By many a crude hut of the pioneer;
Calling by paths where lonely axemen strode,
By new-cleared farmland yet to know the plough;
Calling by deep sled-track and bullock road . . .
But where today man builds his last abode
Few hear my calling now.
Too trusting. When they found my flesh was sweet
Was sweet and white and succulent withal
What mattered beauty? I was good to eat!
Then trust was my undoing; and my call
A summons to men's hunger and the chase
A tame, ignoble chase with me the prey
Till far into some secret forest place
I fled, with that poor remant of my race
I hiding here today.
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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Bountiful Rain
Bountiful rain, we have yearned for you, prayed for you,
When, thro' the drought days, ill visions had scope;
Thankfulness vast in the past we displayed for you
When you have come at the end of our hope.
Now you have come, is our subsequent attitude
Smacking of gracelessness far from the mind.
Is there a tinge of reproach in our gratitude
If we suggest that you can be too kind?
Farmland and forest have known your munificence;
Sweet, tender green springs anew in the fields;
Meekly and meetly we hail your beneficence,
Dreaming again fresh, glorious yields.
Bountiful rain, of your bounty give ear to us,
Yet deem us not for your bounty unfit,
If we remark that just now you appear to us
Well - overdoing it just a wee bit.
The forest's aweep, but the rain is still falling;
The farmlands are soaking, the paddocks awash;
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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Ghost That Wouldn't Lie Still
Once have we bashed him on the head;
Twice have we stabbed him deep;
Thrice have we left him there for dead
And yet he will not sleep;
But rise up from out his grave
To gibber and repine
And generally misbehave
By raving as lost spirits rave:
'Oh, Body-Bodyline!'
We've sneaked on him at dead of night
And bashed his grinning face
And flung him down and rammed him tight
Into his resting place.
We've tied a weight about his neck
And cast him to the brine;
But, lo, next day, he's back on deck,
Like some damp victim of a wreck,
To babble, 'Bodyline!'
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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Exiles
They were a merrie companie,
Who'd dwelt together all these years;
A little mixed in type, maybe;
Yet prone to mingle now as peers,
For old acquaintance sake; and so,
Bewilderment about them swirled
When told, abruptly, they must go,
From these snug shelves, back to the world.
Bill Sikes wept over Little Nell;
Pickwick and Cratchit cried, 'Too bad!'
Tom Pinch and Fagin said farewell;
Uriah Heep was humbly sad,
And Nickleby and Copperfield
Shook hands and said, 'Good-bye, old man!'
And even Daniel Quilp appealed
To gods of fiction 'gainst the ban.
Smike took his leave of Barney Rudge;
Pecksniff pledged Salry one last cup;
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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Benalla
A country lass with rosy cheeks,
A healthy maid with merry ways;
Labor 'mid loveliness she seeks,
And strives to crowd with joy her days.
For she was raised upon a farm;
Upon a farm she grew in grace,
And in that clear air won this charm,
This sweet allure of form and face.
Where she had won the art to grow,
About her house, about her door,
Such loveliness as these days show,
Ask of the years that went before.
But learn she did, as scenes attest
By tree-girt lawn and flowery way,
Even her bridge-heads flank some nest
Of nodding roses, richly gay.
Beyond her home the wheatlands roll,
To yield their tithes upon her dower;
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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Dad on the Test
I reckon (said Dad) that the country's pests
Is this here wireless an' these here Tests.
Up to the house and around the door,
Stretchin' their ears for to catch the score,
Leavin' the horses down in the crop.
Can you wonder that a farmer goes off pop?
I'm yellin' at Jim or I'm cursin' at Joe
All hours of the day; but it ain't no go -
Leavin' their work and hangin' around
When they think I'm down at the fallow ground;
Sneaking away when I start to rouse,
An' as soon as me back's turned, back to the house.
'Who got Wyatt? Is Sutcliffe out?'
Wot do they care if I rave an' shout?
Bribin' young Bill for to leave his job
To twiddle the switches an' twist the knob.
'Has he made his century? Who's in now?'…
And I bought that machine for the price of a cow!
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poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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