Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis: Verses about Warning

Dolefully and drearily
Come I with the spring;
Wearily and cerily
My threnody I sing.
Hear my drear, discordant note
Sobbing, sobbing in my throat,
Weaving, wailing thro' the wattles
Where the builders are a-wing.

Outcast and ostracized,
Miserable me!
By the feathered world despised,
Chased from tree to tree.
Nought to do the summer thro',
My woeful weird a dree;
Singing, 'Pity, ah, pity,
Miserable me!'

I'm the menace and the warning,
Loafing, labour-shy.
In the harmony of morning
Out of tune am I-
Out of tune and out of work,
Meanly 'mid the leaves I lurk,
Fretfully to sing my sorrow,
Furtively to spy.

Outcast and desolate,
Miserable me!
Earning ever scorn and hate
For my treachery.
Shiftless drone, I grieve alone,
To a mournful key
Singing, 'Sorrow, ah, sorrow!
Miserable me!'

Out of great wisdom, long stored up,
I would write me a rune of the Melbourne Cup.
Out of experience, grave and gay,
I would raise me a rhyme to the gala day.
With words of wisdom then let us begin;
For a many shall wager, but few shall win.
And first a warning: Go slow this trip,
For there's many a slip 'twixt the Cup and the tip.
And the sport of Kings, tho' it capture the town,
Is never for one with but half-a-crown.
For this oft is the tale of a Cup Day revel;
Dine with the gods and sup with the devil.
And this oft is the rule when the lucky man sups:
He is in on the Cup and he's on in his cups.
When the living is slow and the horse also
It doesn't much matter what pace you go.
When the living is slow and the horse is fast,
You may keep to a pace that is like to last.
When the living is fast and the horse is 'dead,'
There's the dickens to pay, and an aching head.
But, fast or slow, if you play the game
To the end, then the end is much the same.
So this is the motto to hold and to hug:
There is but one Cup; but there's many a mug.
And these be the sayings of Smug, the saint,
You may guess he's a grouch, but I wot he ain't.
So, out or in, if you still can grin,
Here's a glorious day to you, lose or win!

Oh, foolish flapper, keen to be
Considered cute and up-to-date,
Sit down a while and hark to me,
And I shall truly read your fate
Not in a tea-cup, sweetling mine;
But in the leas of a gin-and-two,
Manhattans swigged before the wine,
Martinis guzzled ere you dine;
There shall I trace your fortune true.

What see we in the stickly smear
Where still the liquor lingers, damp?
A sorry group of hags are here -
Gin-eaters, such as Mistress Gamp.
Here lurks a warning, precious pet,
For those who walk the wobbly path.
That crystal fluid, don't forget,
Was ne'er ingurgitated yet
Without some awful aftermath.

And here we see your own sweet self
Sipping some hocussed hypocrene.
Innocuous? Nay, charming elf,
It may be colored pink or green,
Ambrosial amber; 'spite the hue
Such dopes deceptive men sneak in
Its basic bane yet lingers true;
It's giggle-juice, a droll's brew,
It's 'mother's ruin,' per; it's GIN!

Gin that has brought the shame of age,
The maudlin speech, the muddled mind,
Since olden days to saint and sage,
To Sairey Gamp and all her kind.
And if you (as I'll not suppose)
Be 'so dispoged' to misbehave,
I read your progress to the close:
The glazing eye, the reddening nose,
The hobnail liver, and the grave.

Let 'em come, by gum! That's all I say.
Let me see one of 'em up this way,
With their sacks a-back an' their walkin' boots
Low neck, short-panted hikin' coots
Flingin' their fags in the brambles here,
Same as that other one done last year.
He might just once; but he won't no more.
I'll nail his hide to the cow-shed door.

A mile o' fencin' and two good hust
All thro' them an' their lighted butts.
Patronisin'? You're too dead right.
These city fellers is awful bright
Three good huts an' a mile o' fence!
'Tisn't so much me own expense;
Three mile o' forest gone up in smoke!
Well, ain't it enough to nark a bloke?

The worst they done was in ninety-five.
Poor ole Ben Bray, he'd still be alive
It if wasn't for that camp-fire they left.
But a burnt-out-home an' the kids bereft
Of their dad. Yes; that was the toll that day;
An' the fellers what done it miles away.
Oh, there's fools in the forest as well as town.
I ain't lettin' none o' me neighbors down.

There's fools in the forests, as well I knows;
Chancin' a burn when the north wind blows.
An' they oughter be pinched . . . But them city skites,
Suckin' their fags an' strikin' their lights!
Just let me catch 'em! Vindictive? Me?
Ropeable, am I? Well, wouldn't you be
If you suffered the same from their smokin' butts?
Three mile o' fencin' an' four good huts!

'There must be some way out,' they say.
'There must be some way out!
We've fallen on an evil day;
That we no longer doubt.
But surely there's some magic rare
To banish this dull load of care,
And strengthen out defences.
We'll find it, yet, if we but look;
But this is sure: By hook or crook,
We won't cut down expenses!'

How like a harried housewife these
Wild politicians seem.
'Oh, George!' she cries. 'Don't scold so, please!
You must find some shrewd scheme.
There surely must be some way out.
What of those deals you talked about?
Are all your plans pretences?
I want a frock; I want a hat.
My parties? Bridge debts? What of that?
I can't cut down expenses!'

But George he knows, as well we know,
There is but one way out:
When incomes fall we must go slow.
Stern facts no man may flout.
And well we know, as George must know,
A pound note just so far will go.
And all men in their senses
Well realise there's but one way,
When we fall on an evil day
We've got to cut expenses.

The magic stone philosophers
Sought in the olden years,
May, by no chance, be ours, or hers,
For all our pleas and tears.
The only magic's common sense
Despite vague schemes and sly pretence,
Wrangles and differences.
When economic stress appears,
One warning echoes down the years:
'Go slow, and cut expenses!'

Now a sad farewell to the cable-tram,
Staunch friend of the quieter days,
That glided down thro' a leisured town
Ere the urge for speed was a craze.
We'd time to spare and we took the air
On a sociable seat outside
Calm charioteers of those peaceful years
When 'the trams' were a city's pride.

Clash! Clang! The twin bells rang,
And the grip went smoothly in.
Then we floated along to a muted song
And a dearth of hustle and din.
Untouched by the need for racketting speed
That frazzles the moderns' nerves,
Scarce heeding at all the warning call:
'Sit tight! Hold on at the curve!'
Unhurried, serene, we viewed the scene,
Or chatted with Charlie or Sam.
Oh, in spite of the rage of a jazz-mad age,
I'm still for the cable-tram, I am,
The jolly old cable-tram.

But they're rooting them out, the cable-trams,
Like all earth's pleasanter things;
To oblivion brought by a Juggernaut
That needs no leading strings
And they'll serve when dead, for a shelter shed
By some shrill suburban road.
Or a garden 'nook,' unbelievably crook,
At a philistine's abode.

Clash! Clang! . . . How the breezes sang
On a sunny Sabbath Day.
And away we go with Fanny or Flo
For a tram trip down the Bay.
'What O! There's class!' Proud ponies pass
With their shining jinkers there,
And joy's complete, we've a front-row seat,
And the sea-wind's in our hair.
And never a car snorts by to mar
That peace with its swank and sham.
You may keep your noise and your clattering toys!
I'm for the cable-tram, I am!
Idyllic old cable-tram.

Deah Ladies,
Let me wawn you, theah are feahful taimes to come,
And a mos' ter-ific strugge is at hand;
And we have no taime to speah
If we wish to do ouah sheah
To defend, like Joan of Awk, ouah native land.
Foah a really fraightful monstah is preparing to devouah
All that's uppab-clauss and propah and quaite naice;
And if we should be behaind
In the battle aye shall faind
All ouah priveleges vanish in a traice.


O, it makes me shuddah, ladies, when Ai ventuah to reflect
On the ravages this mongstah contemplates.
He will break up all ouah homes,
And where'er the creatuah roams,
We'll be sundered from ouah lawful Tory mates.
We'll be tawn from ouah poah husbands in a most fe-rocious way,
0, deah ladies, can you realise ouah lot?
For the monstah has his eye
On the Sacred Marriage Tie;
And he'll eat up all the babes we haven't got.


And remembah, deahest ladies, all ouah comfort now depends
On destroying this wild Socialistic beast.
Ouah sassiety diversions
Would be vulgah mob excursions
If we pandered to the monstah in the least.
He is bent on confiscating all the houses, land and wealth
Of ouah husbands, and ouah brothahs, and ouah friends.
He is jealous of his bettahs.
And he calls ouah men-folk sweatahs,
He'll do anything to gain his awful ends.


He's vulgah and unchivalrous this feahful Labah thing.
He is teaching all ouah servants to despise us.
He would drag us to his level,
And he'd send to the - ah - devil
All the luxuries with which his toil supplies us.
He harps upon equality when, as of course you know,
And as all the very naicest people know,
It would simply mean disaster
To imagine ev'ry master
Quaite as ignorant as workers or as 'low.'


0, smaite the Socialistic monstah! Smaite him hard, mai deahs!
0, gathah up youah skirts and join the fray.
Pray, do not shirk the battle, or, with wailing and with teahs,
You'll regret youah negligence on polling day,
We must teach the vulgah working class their raight position here;
We must keep them in their places; we must faight them without fear,
Or there'll be a bittah wail, mai deahs,
If Socialists prevail, mai deahs,
And all 'raight thinking' people and the 'naicest' disappear.

When old ADAM bit the apple,
And thereafter had to grapple
With hard toil to earn his daily bread by sweat,
There's no doubt that he protested
That his 'rights' had been molested,
And he's probably protesting strongly yet:
'When this garden was created
It was never contemplated
It was never in the schedule or the plan
'Twasn't even dimly hinted
That my living would be stinted,
Or that Work would ever be the lot of man.'

But in spite of protestation
ADAM, with his lone relation,
Was evicted in an arbitrary way,
Even though that resolution
Wasn't in the Constitution,
And his children have been grafting to this day.
But poor ADAM'S old contention
Has become a stock convention
'Mid the ADAMS of the nations ever since,
'Mid the shufflers and the shirkers,
Crusted Tory anti-workers,
They whom nought but 'precedent' can e'er convince.

They're the ADAMS of the race; they're the men that clog the pace,
With their backs upon the vanguard and their eyes upon the rear;
Praising loud their point of view, and regarding owt that's new
With a rabid Tory hatred and a vague old-fashioned fear.
They're the men of yester-year loitering all needless here,
And meandering around and 'round in aimless, endless rings.
Ever ready to resent acts without a precedent,
Such as were not contemplated in the ancient scheme of things.
'O, it was not contemplated!'
'Tis the cry of the belated,
The complaint of all the Old Worlds waterlogged;
Tis the trade-mark of the Tory;
'Tis the declaration hoary;
'Tis the protest of the busted and the bogged.
Mark, whenever it is uttered
By the lips of ancients muttered,
There is wisdom lacking here, at any rate
For, when Tories were created
It was never contemplated
That they ever would attempt to contemplate.

There are many things decided,
Quite by precedent unguided.
It was never contemplated, by the way.
When the scheme of things was shaping,
And mankind emerged from aping,
That he'd ever learn to eat three times a day;
Yet, all precedent unheeding,
Even Tories time their feeding,
And are known to be quite regular at meals;
Though in neolithic ages
'Twas laid down by ancient sages
That a man shall eat when so inclined he feels.

He's the dead weight at the back; he's the log upon the track;
He's the man who shouts the warning when the danger's past and gone;
He's the prophet of the old by defunct traditions hold;
He's the chap who sits and twaddles while the crowd goes marching on.
Of the things uncontemplated in the councils of the dead;
But the nation marches by heedless of his bitter cry
Marches on and contemplates the vital things away ahead.

In the shaping of a nation
Can we crowd all contemplation
Can we plan it in a hurried week or so?
Cease your ancient whiskered story
And observe, O gentle Tory,
We are contemplating matters as we go.
E'en to-day we're contemplating
Matters princip'ly relating
To the shaping of to-morrow's onward way;
And to-morrow ev'ry grafter
Will be forming plans for after;
But we are not harking back to yesterday.

For the future days arranging;
Seeking, planning, ever changing;
Weeding out the old mistakes of yester-year;
Planting now the seed of new things
March the men who dare and do things,
Opening up the unblazed road without a fear.
And, O mark you, gentle Tory,
We shall judge your measures hoary
By the use in this day's scheme they represent;
We shall use them if we want them;
If we don't we shall supplant them,
For we do not care a damn for precedent.

He's discretion at its worst; he a harbinger reversed;
He's the obstinate old party who abhors the new and strange.
He's the man whose ancient eyes ever fail to recognise
That the Law of Man was ever Change, and ever will be Change.
He's a scoffer at the Law; he's a blemish and a flaw;
And he whines as did old ADAM when he lost the realms of bliss.
When they shored him in the cold in the parlous days of old:
'THIS WAS NEVER CONTEMPLATED! YOU'VE NO PRECEDENT FOR THIS!'

Lord, Thou hast given unto us a land.
In Thy beneficence Thou has ordained
That we should hold a country great and grand,
Such as no race of old has ever gained.
A favoured people, basking in Thy smile:
So dost Thou leave us to work out our fate;
But, Lord, be patient yet a little while.
The shade is pleasing and our task is great.

Lo, Thou hast said: 'This land I give to you
To be the cradle of a mighty race,
Who shall take up the White Man's task anew,
And all the nations of the world outpace.
No heritage for cowards or for slaves,
Here is a mission for the brave, the strong.
Then see ye to it, lest dishonoured graves
Bear witness that he tarried overlong.'

Lo, Thou hast said: 'When ye have toiled and tilled,
When ye have borne the heat, and wisely sown,
And every corner of the vineyard filled
With goodly growth, the land shall be your own.
Then shall your sons and your sons' sons rejoice.
Then shall the race speak with a conqueror's mouth;
And all the world shall hearken to its voice,
And heed the great White Nation of the South.'

And Thou hast said: 'This, striving, shall ye do.
Be diligent to tend and guard the soil.
If this great heritage I trust to you
Be worth the purchase of a meed of toil,
Then shall ye not, at call of game or mart,
Forgo the labour of a single day.
They spurn the gift who treasure but a part.
Guard ye the whole, lest all be cast away!

'Say, is My bounty worth the winning?' (Lord,
So hast thou spoken. Humbly have we heard.)
'No son of man is born who can afford
To pay Me tribute with an empty word.
Guard ye the treasure if the gift be meet.
Win ye to strength and wisdom while ye may.
For he who fears the burden and the heat
Shall gain the wages of a squandered day!'

Lord, we have heard….Loud our Hosannas rang!
Voices of glad thanksgiving did we lift.
From out the fullness of our hearts we sang
Sweet hymns of praise for this Thy gracious gift.
Here, in one corner of the land, we found
A goodly garden, where abundant food
We won, with scanty labor, from the ground.
Here did we rest. And, Lord, we found it good!

Great cities have we builded here, 0 Lord;
And corn and kine full plenty for our need
We have; and cloth the wondrous land afford
Treasure beyond the wildest dreams of greed.
Even this tiny portion of Thy gift,
One corner of our mightly continent,
Doth please us well. A voice in prayer we lift:
'Lord, give us peace! For we are well content.'

Lord, give us peace; for Thou has sent a sign:
Smoke of a raider's ships athwart the sky!
Nay, suffer us to hold this gift of Thine!
The burden, Lord! The burden-by and by!
The sun is hot, Lord, and the way is long!
'Tis pleasant in this corner Thou has blest.
Leave us to tarry here with wine and song.
Our little corner, Lord! Guard Thou the rest!

But yesterday our fathers hither came,
Rovers and strangers on a foreign strand.
Must we, for their neglect, bear all the blame?
Nay, Master, we have come to love our land!
But see, the task Thou givest us is great;
The load is heavy and the way is long!
Hold Thou our enemy without the gate;
When we have rested then shall we be strong.

Lord, Thou hast spoken… And, with hands to ears,
We would shut out the thunder of Thy voice
That in the nightwatch wakes our sudden fears
'The day is here, and yours must be the choice.
Will ye be slaves and shun the task of men?
Will ye be weak who may be brave and strong?'
We wave our banners boastfully, and then,
Weakly we answer, 'Lord, the way is long!'

'Time tarries not, but here ye tarry yet,
The futile masters of a continent,
Guard ye the gift I gave? Do ye forget?'
And still we answer, 'Lord, we are content.
Fat have we grown upon this goodly soil,
A little while he patient, Lord, and wait.
To-morrow and to-morrow will we toil.
The shade is pleasing, Lord! Our task is great!'

But ever through the clamour of the mart,
And ever on the playground through the cheers:
'He spurns the gift who guardeth but a part'
So cloth the warning fall on heedless cars.
'Guard ye the treasure if the gift be meet'
(Loudly we call the odds, we cheer the play.)
'For he who fears the burden and the heat
Shall glean the harvest of a squandered day.'

Now, this ain't a loocid story, but it 'as a 'igh-class moral.
I can mop up all the praises hurled at me by them it soots.
An' with them it don't appeal to I don't seek to pick a quarrel;
But I pause to say in passin', that I hold 'em brainless coots.

Well it mighter been a nightmare or it mighter been a vision.
Why or 'ow or where it 'appened, or 'ow long or shot ago
These are items I am shy of; but I've come to this decision:
It all 'appened some'ow somewhere, an' I'm tellin' all I know.

With this lengthy introduction - which I'm trustin', inter-arlier,
Will be paid for, cash, at space rates, to assist a bard in need
(For the lot of jingle-writers in our own sun-kissed Australier
Ain't so sunny as it might be, on the 'ole) - I'll now proceed.

There was me - who's most important, bein' here to tell the story
There was Kodak's gloomy lodger, an' a 'Enry Lawson bloke,
Also E.J. Brady's pirate, full of husky oaths and gory,
An' a plump and pleasin' female from an Ambrose Dyson joke.

Likewise with us at the geth'rin' Was Grant 'Ervey's Strong Australian.
An' a curly Souter peach; it was a treat the way she dressed;
An' a Louis Esson dryad, sparsely gowned an' somewot alien
(For which rhyme I point to many precedents amongst the best).

Also there were many others, far too noomerous to mention;
Bron men, somwot out of drorin', but exceedin' terse an' keen;
Yeller pups, George Reids an' dry dogs - but it is not my intention
To innoomerate the items in a Chris'mas BULLYTEEN.

Where we were I 'ave no notion, tho' it mighter been Parnassus.
Any'ow - but I'm forgettin' one small guest that came unbid;
Standin' in a corner sulkin', seldom speakin', 'cept to sass us,
Rubbin' 'is thin calves together, stood a Norman Lindsay kid.

But the main point of this story is that all of us was stony;
An' we needed money badly for to give ourselves a treat.
An' we wanted to present the editor with somethin' toney
In the shape of clubs or rest cures, just to try an' get 'im sweet.

'Mates, alas, there's nothin'left us,' ses the gloomy Lawson native.
'We can only look for other castaways from other wrecks.'
When the Wild Cat, on 'is windlass, scratched 'is left ear contemplative
An' remarked, 'I think I've gotter scheme to land the fatted cheques.

'We are valuable assets,' 'e went on, in tones finanshul.
'We are also reproductive, an' I think I see a chance
To relieve the present tension, an' secure a sum substanshul,
Which all comes of my acquaintance with low schemes an' 'igh finance.

'If we borrer twenty thousand on our natcheral resourses
On all BULLETTEEN creations - it will purchase many beers.
We can maffick, an' pay int'rest - which is a triflin' thing of course is
With a sinkin' fund extendin' over ninety-seven years.'

Well! To say we was elated is to put th ematter mildly.
I can still 'ear Brady's pirate yellin', 'Bite mates, let us bite!'
I can still see Kodak's lodger kick 'is slippered feet, and wildly
Try to borrer two-an'-sixpence on the spot....But oh, that night!

'Where do I come in?' a squeaky voice arose above our shoutin',
Rose an' squeaked, shrill an' insistent, over all our joyous din.
'Twas the kid, the Lindsay youngster, standin' in 'is corner poutin'.
'Take a pull, yer bloomin' wasters! Blime, where do i come in?

'Nice lot, ain't yer? Garn, yer loafers! Let the comin' generation
Suck their theumbs an' watcher yer jag, an' 'ump the bill when it comes due;
Slave an' work when you 'ave snuffed it. An' you look for veneration
From us kids! Why, blime, who could venerate the likes of you?

'As THE BULLYTEEN been preachin' years an' years an' years for nuffin'
On the vice of floatin' loans ab' gettin' in the 'ands of Yids?
Playin' up yer borrered money! Eatin' drinkin', swillin', stuffin'!
Then, when you 'ave checukced a seven, what a picnic for the kids!'

Spare me! You could 'ear a pin dropp when that little kid 'ad finsihed.
We just 'ung our 'eads in silence, till the Strong Australian spoke.
(Brady's pirate tore 'is whiskers, with 'is lust for jags dimished;
An' the Souter peach was sobbin' on the breast of Lawson's bloke.)

'Comrades,' ses the Strong Australian, 'see our star all glory litten!
Heed the ancient, beer-stained story! Heed the warning of the kid!
Lo, the way of ink's before us! Ringing verses shall be written
In which I shall figure largely. Yes, I shall.' An', 'struth, 'e did!

Ses the pirate, with the remnants of 'is whiskers fiercely bistlin'.
'In the war of life together we must take each wound and sear.'
'Now, we care not where we're bound for,' ses the Lawson native, whistlin'
For 'is dawg. 'It's up Matilda.' As for me, I ses, ''Ear, 'ear.'

As I sed, this yarn ain't loocid, but its moral should not fail yer.
I shall ne'er fergit that ev'nin' or the voice above the din.
It's the cry of all the kiddies, born an' unborn, in Australyer,
When we flash our borrered millyuns: 'Blime, where do we come in?'