Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis: Verses about Destiny

What's the use?
Give it best;
Cut her loose;
Have a rest.
Hope is dead;
Gloom collects,
Nuff is said
Cook objects.


Moth and rust
Hither lurk;
All is bust,
Knock off work.
Nation's great
Architects,
Clean the slate;
Cook objects.


Oh the schemes
That we planned!
Dreaming dreams
For the land.
All in vain.
Hope neglects
To remain;
Cook objects.
Navy; what?
Army too?
Blessed rot;
All is blue.
It's all one
Who protects.
dropp your gun;
Cook objects.


Let her rip,
All is up.
Have to sip
Bitter cup.
Tear your hair
Woe connects
With despair,
Cook objects.
Fellow Aust
Ralians,
Trouble's crossed
All our plans.
Seek the tomb;
Fate selects
Us for doom.
Cook objects.


Death marks us
For his own.
(Grisly cuss.)
Our head-tone,
With a laugh,
He erects.
Epitaph
'Cook objects.'
dropp a tear;
Heave a sigh;
End is near;
Say goodbye.
Sell up home
And effects.
(Dismal pome)
Cook objects.

There is women, yer Worship, of various kinds:
An' some of 'em's fluffy a' foolish,
An' some is sispicious an' mean in their minds,
An' others fair set-like an' mulish.
There is some, as I owns, is real kind - tho' not many,
As maybe yer Worship 'as coped with - if any.

But wot can you do with a woman wot 'arps?
I am arskin' the Bench, as a man an' a male
Wot sticks to 'er subjeck an' cavils an' carps,
Wot won't be put orf it, but 'ammers an' 'arps
Till you rock like a ship in a gale.
I'm a plain, placid man, an' me patience is vast;
But the patience of angels gits wobbly at last.

For she 'arps on me 'abits, she 'arps in me ears,
She 'arps on me cricket an' listenin' in;
She 'arps an' she 'arps, till I'm full of strange fears;
For I knows there's no end once I 'ear 'er begin.
So, am I to be blamed if I rise in me passion
An' seek for to send 'er where 'arpin's the fashion?

For wot can you do with a woman wot 'arps?
I slung 'er bokays while me 'anger was 'ot.
I was full to the teeth of 'er flats an' 'er sharps;
So I slung 'er bokays, while she 'ammers an' 'arps
(An' them flowers was till in the pot.)
Well, I needn't say more; for she's told all the rest.
But I craves yer man' mercy; an' 'opes for the best.

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.

Oh, how I hate these chills, these winter ills,
Bleak blasts and breezes;
Abominate the 'flu,' the fierce 'Tishoo'
All inappropriate sneezes;
How I detest th' uneasy, wheezy chest.
Yet (tho' the declaration may seem priggish)
Fate I defy; and to Cold's cohorts cry,
Indomitable ever: 'Ick! ... Ip! ... Iggish!'

I dream of coral isles where sunlight smiles
And high noon blazes,
Where luscious tropic green, is vaguely seen
Thro' dancing hazes.
I long for these; and then some biting breeze
Pierces my being like an icy splinter;
Yet once more I, with shrill defiance, cry
And fling taunts in the teeth of woeful Winter.

I know this dread disease brings me unease
Most deleterious;
And well, indeed, I know I often grow
Slightly delirious.
But, all the same, nought may my spirit tame;
Fears I have never felt nor eke confessed any;
Tho' some have said I'm partly off my head
When I bark challenges at brooding Destiny.

Oft - Ip! (Excuse me) Snisch! ... Often I wish
For sword and buckler
To slake my seething hate. To sneering Fate
I am no truckler.
Tho' my poor head, pain-wreathed, sinks to the bed,
Ah, bleak battalions, I would smite and smash you!
For, don't forget, I am my own man yet
While my unconquerable soul shouts, 'Ack! ... Harrashoo!'

The winds that blow about the world
(Said Old George Jones)
See here all hope to ruin hurled,
See there triumphant flags unfurled,
Over chance-favored zones.
And no man's wisdom, no man's might
Foresees, much les controls
Some little breeze born of the night
That brings perchance a sudden blight
Or balm for tortured souls.

But growin' things and sowin' things
And watchin' of 'em grow
Not hastenin' things or slowin' things
Nor seekin' to be knowin' things
That men may never know.
'Tis so the kind earth pays a man
'Tis so content is made.
Not work, but worry slays a man;
I take what tricks Fate plays a man
An' sticks to Adam's trade.

The fears that creep about the earth
Vague fears and short-lived joys
What in reckonin' are they worth?
Too quickly swayed by grief or mirth
We live like foolish boys.
Year in, year out, earth mothers us
And offers livelihood,
This year ill fortune bothers us
Next year her bounty smothers us:
The sum of all is good.

'Tis futile man proposes things;
But Nature goes her ways
And God alone disposes things,
And Time alone discloses things
That rule our future says.
Earth yields me her fertility
And till she takes my bones,
I'll nought of man's futility.
For peace bides in humility
(Said Old George Jones).

Can it be I - this Hindenburg, deferring
To demagogues, catch phrases, lucky charms
And all this mummery about me stirring?
Can it be I, lord of high feats of arms,
Smiling complancence on a rabble's blunders,
Counting a mountebank amongst my peers
I, who commanded with the voice of thunders?
Ah, what a role betrays me with the years!

Can it be I - condoning, cavallering
This sorry paint-and-tinsel paladin.
This braggart upstart, raging, racketeering
Like some cheap western gangster 'muscling in,'
Apeing the arts in which I loomed a master:
Acting with arms as children play with toys:
Mouthing fierce phrases, pregannt with disaster,
To lure brief loyalty from brain-sick boys?

Can it be I who saw the vision splendid
Shaping before these ageing eyes of mine,
When half a world, before my day had eneded,
Hurtled its might against my stubborn Line?
The Line of Hindenburg! the natons raging
Before an avatar who reached the sky! ...
And now? - A hapless figurehead, fast ageing,
The mighty Hindenburg! Can this be I?

Strange trick of Fate ... And yet, sometimes I wonder,
While factions rage and puny tyrants bray,
If victory might yet be snatched for blunder
Till gloriously dawned against The Day!
If - To what end? Youth seeks in other fashion
It's destiny. 'Tis world-worn age that drools
Of glories gone ... Enough to veil compassion
With weary tolerance. Poor dupes! Poor fools!

We curse our lot; we gird at fate;
Like peevish children we complain;
Hope dies, and life grows desperate
Because of ease and pleasures salin.
Because bright fortune fails to smile
And pamper us, as once she used,
But frowns a little for the while,
To bleak despair we are reduced.


Yet, o'er a narrow stretch of sea,
Where lately smiled a city fair,
Falls cataclysmic agony,
And death in horrid shapes is there.
All in an instant men are hurled -
Who knew no foe, who earned no blame -
Out of a peaceful, sunlit world
'Mid shattered homes and seething flame.


Crazed women roam the littered street
Seeking their babes; with sobbing breath
They search grim ruins, there to meet
Fresh, ghastly evidence of death -
Death, creeping death, where men have lain
Trapped 'neath the press of heavy beams
Waiting thro' hours of nameless pain
Such as men know in frightful dreams.


And we complain! . . . Poor timid fools.
Because our luxuries grow less,
Each beats his breast and drones and drools
Of gloom and shattered happiness.
While there, by very earth betrayed,
Forsaken, doomed, men still are men;
And heroism there displayed
Preserves the name of Man again.


There, where the elements conspire
To end a world at one swift stroke.
Stirred by the flame of that grim pyre,
Divinity in Man awoke. . . .
Here, petulant, with tears and blame,
We gird against Fate's mild decree
Who should bow down our heads in shame
And thank our gods for sanctuary.

Alfred Ebenezer Jackson was a very earnest man,
Who aspired to be a statesman, and he consequently ran
At a general election as the Candid Candidate,
Sworn to tell the truth ungarbled, leaving all the rest to Fate.


Jackson had a firm conviction that the average M.P.
Was not prefectly straightforward as a member ought to be.
'They disguise their actual motives,' Jackson said, 'and so they fail.
I shall leave no false suspicion that I'm sitting on a rail.'


'Fellow men,' quoth Ebenezer, in his first campaign address.
'My desire to gain election is most eager, I confess:
True, some patriotic ardor fills me with its holy fire;
But to get a safe and steady billet is my main desire.


'Now, to put the matter plainly, I've no wish to twist or hedge,
And I'm quite prepared to stand to all the things that I allege.
I aspire to serve Australia in the Big Affairs of State:
To that aim all local interests gladly I'll subordinate.


'I shall give no hasty promise for the sake of votes from you.
Roads and bridges you shall have them when they are your right and due;
But wre this whole country's interest clashes with your local lot,
Then my vote is for Australia and the rest can go to pot!


'I'll not stoop to curry favor for the sake of your back yard,
While the Big Things of the nation call for labor long and hard;
For I'm not of those hard grafters whose chief work is turning coats,
With their thoughts on next election, and their eyes upon your votes.


'Party ties shall never hold me when I hear Australia call,
Through my service to the nation do I seek to stand or fall.
And to talk election piffle in the House, if I be sent
There to work, I'll deem an insult to the folk I represent.


'I shall scheme to drag no railway through the back yard of this State;
Nor on any handy dust-heap in this dashed electorate
Shall I vote to plant a city, while the fact is evident
That abtter site is waiting elsewhere on the continent.


'I am solid for Protection: but my creed I won't abuse
By mean tricks to shift the duty from commodities you use:
Nor shall I denounce with loathing Socialists' experiments
While I howl for State assistance for my own constituents.


'Now, my worthy friends, you know me, and just what I mean to do.
As plain people of Australia I am ev'ry time for you,
With my eyes upon the future and this great land's destiny,
I shall not to 'local interests' sacrifice prosterity.'


Alfred Ebenezer Jackson raised a wild, derisive shout
From 'intelligent electors.' 'Mad!' they said, 'without a doubt.'
And because they knew he meant it - ev'ry work he spoke or wrote
Alfred Ebenezer Jackson did not get a single vote!

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (wailing dismally):
'Who can deliver us, Lord of our destiny!
Out of the depths comes our passionate cry,
Wrung from the soul of us. Aid for the whole of us!
Tell us, we pray, that our succor is nigh.


'Where is the super-man? Where the deliverer?
Where is the Captain to win us relief
Surcease from sorrowing, respite from borrowing?
Oh, for a philtre to deaden our grief!'


ANXIOUS VOICE FROM RIGHT WING:
'Patience, 0 populace! Wait for a little while!
Labor shall succor you - cleave to your Jim!
James and the rest of them, sure, are the best of them
Jimmy, the agable, trust ye to him!


'Lo, from the Chosen lures he the capital.
Bright golden, capital! Glorious loans!
Millions and mill-i-ons! Soon 'twill be bill-i-ons!
Patience awhile till he floats 'em.' (Loud groans.)


VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (irritably):
'Jim? Oh, be d-d to him. Doors are all slammed to him
Cohen's and Isaac's and old Ikey Mo's.
We would live decently! Up the spout recently
He has shoved everything barring our clothes.


(Again dolefully)
'Who can deliver us? Is there no saviour?
Is there no Chief with a Will and a Plan?
Not in a city-full? Oh, it is pitiful!
The hour it is striking - but where is the man?'


VOICE FROM LEFT WING (eagerly)
'Cheer up, my countrymen! Here is your Gregory!
Long he!s been shut from the councils of State.
He'll banish care for you; he'll do and dare for you.
Wade is the captain to fashion your fate.


'Long was he languishing, sunk in obscurity;
Now his wise counsel the populace seeks.
He is the man for you; he'll plot and plan for you.
Rest on his Liberal bosom.' (Wild shrieks.)


VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (petulantly)
'Out on your Gregory! Visions of beggary
Haunt us whenever we bear of his name.
Labor or Liberal, Jimmy or Gregory.
Wade or McGowen, they're both much the same.


(With increasing anguish):
'Who can deliver us? Who is to win for us
Money at four per cent., five per cent., ten?
In what futurity, out of obscurity,
Shall there arise this great leader of men?'


GREASY VOICE FROM THE FLIES:
'Sufferin' Solomon! Vot is dis howl aboudt?
Hary to yer Uncle, he'll tole yer vot's right;
Not more at four per shent. - no, nor at more per shent
Can you get capital! Monish is tight.


'Listen, goot beobles, your beano is finished mit;
Und obligations you neffer can shirk.
Monish vos tight, my tears; dot vos all right, my tears.
Loans vas maturin'. You'll haf to get vork.'


VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (howling):
'Work? O preposterous! What are we coming to?
Is there no super-man armed with a scheme
Scheme to win capital? Is there no chap at all
Willing to plan for us? Work! Do we dream?


(Desperately):
'Who can deliver us? Who can win ease for us?
Rescue us out of this ocean of debt?
We've come to wreck in it; up to the neck in it
Won't someone help us get out of the wet?'


(With gloomy reiteration):
'Who can deliver us? Who can deliver us?
Are none to pit such desperate elves?
Here or in other State? Oh, the poor Mother State!'....
CHORUS FROM THE GALLERY (in disgust):
'Aw, turn it up, an' deliver yerselves.'

CHARLES:
So, brother, I am out and yu are in.
Farewell, farewell, to all my splendor bright!
Yet, just to know 'tis you, dear Agar Wynne,
Tinges my melancholy with delight.
Indeed, I find it very hard to go;
Yet pleasure surely mingles with my woe.


Ay, you are in, and I am in - the soup!
For me the shades; for you the favored place.
Yet doth it cheer me when my spirits droop
Just to behold yur ever welcome face.
Aside. (But by the gods, just give me half a show,
The merest chance to kick, and out you go!)


AGAR:
Sweet Frazer, though I ill disguise my joy
In winning thus to fame, despite my foes;
It pains me to the heart, my dear old boy,
To think 'tis you whom I must so depose.
Nay, but it brings the hot tears to mine eyes,
To know that you must sink that I may rise.

Agar is in, and Charles is out, you say.
Tis sure a cruel fortune wills it so.
My joy is clouded o'er with grief to-day.
Because, my dear old friend, you have to go.
Aside. (But, give me strength, and I shall scheme and plan
To keep you out for ever, if I can!)


CHARLES:
Dear Agar, when I gaze into your eyes,
Those kindly orbs whose depths so well I know,
Nay, I am filled with wonder and surprise
That I did not resign long years ago.
For who is Charles, to hold a place on high,
When such a man as Agar Wynne is by?


Indeed, the sorrow I so lately felt
Has given place to purest joy alone:
For now, at last, discerning Fate has dealt
Bare justice, and you sit upon my throne.
Aside. (But give me half a chance, that's all I crave;
I'll dig with joy your Legislative grave!)


AGAR:
Nay, rare Charles Edward, 'tis your blind regard
For him you love prompts that unselfish speech.
Ah, would that Fate - blind Fate, so doubly hard
Had never placed these sweets within my reach!
If 'twere not for my Party, friend, I'd say,
'Cleave you to office, Charles; I will away.'


Forgive these tears; for mow my joy has flown.
And in its stead comepangs of dull despair.
Ah, could I but contrive, my friend, mine own!
To yield you of my triumph en'en a share!
Aside. (Now, by the Sacred Fuse, you've got the sack
And I'll raise Cain to stop your gettingback.)


CHARLES:
Agar! These tears are tears of sorrow rare!
My past neglect of you brings keen regret.


AGAR:
Dear Charles, if you've s kerchief you could spare,
Pray lend it me. Mine own is sopping wet.
Both, aside. (Now, having pulled his leg, I shall retire
And, to confound him, with my friends conspire.)


Exit both, apparently in tears, but eyeing each other furtively from
behind their respective handkerchiefs.
UNIMPORTANT CLERK (Advancing):
Well, spare my days! Of all the blessed guff!
And if, next week, Wynne's out and Frazer's in.
They'll probably dish up the same old stuff,
While honest men can only stand and grin.
More change! More toil! More worry for our sins!
A plague on all their childish Outs and INs!


Now must we shed the Labor livery,
And learn new manners in the Lib'ral school.
And, mayhap, in a twelve-month we shall be
Once more returned unto the Labor rule.
Oh, that the gods would blast such tricks as these,
And send this land Elective Ministries!

Bell rings. Exit.
CURTAIN.

Ow! Wow! Wow!
(Funeral note sustained by flutes, suggesting a long-bodied,
short-legged, large-headed dog in anguish.)
Ow! Wow!
We are the people who make the row;
We are the nation that skites and brags;
Marching the goose-step; waving the falgs.
Hoch!
We talk too much, and we lose our block,
We scheme and spy; we plot, we lie
To blow the whoe world into the sky.
The Kaiser spouts, and the Junkers rave.
Hoch! for the Superman, strong and brave!
But what is the use of a Superman,
With 'frightfulness' for his darling plan,
If he has no cities to burn and loot,
No women to ravish, no babies to shoot?
Shall treaties bind us against our wish?
Rip! Swish!
(Violins: Tearing noise as of scraps of paper being destroyed.)
Now at last shall the whole world learn
Of the cult of the Teuton, strong and stern!
Ho! for the Superman running amok!
Hoch!


Um - ta, um - ta, tiddley - um - tum!
(Uncertain note, as of a German band that has been told to move on.)
Pompety - pom pom - tiddeley - um - tum!
Way for the 'blond beasts!' Here they come!
While big guns thunder the nations' doom.
Boom!
Room! Room!
Room for the German! A place in the sun!
He'll play the Devil now he's begun!
Ker-r-r-rump!....Bump!...
(Drums: Noise of an exploding cathedral.)
Ho, the gaping wound and the bleeding stump!
Watch the little ones how they jump!
While we shoot and stab, and plunder and grab,
Spurred by a Kaiser's arrogant gab;
While the Glorious Junker
Grows drunker,
And drunker, on blood.
Blood! Blood!
Sword or cannon or fire or flood,
Never shall stay our conquering feet -
On through city and village street -
Feet that savagely, madly tread,
Over the living; over the dead.
Shoot! Shoot!
Burn and pillage and slay and loot!
To the sound of our guns shall the whole world rock!
Hoch!


Shrieks!
(Flutes, piccolos and trombones render, respectively, the cries of
children, shrieks of women and groans of tortured non-cambatants.
Violins wail mournfully.)
Shrieks! Shrieks!
Hoch der Kaiser! The whole land reeks
With tales of torture and savage rape,
Of fiends and satyrs in human shape;
Fat hands grabbing where white flesh shrinks;
And murdered age to the red earth sinks.
Kill! Kill!
Now at length shall we gorge our fill,
And all shall bow to the German will!
By the maids we ravish our lust to slake,
By the smoking ruin that mark our wake,
By the blood we spill,and the hearths we blast....
This is The Day! The Day at last!....
Praise to God! On our bended knees,
We render thaks for boons like these.
For God and the Kaiser our cohorts flock!
Hoch!
(Scrap of German hymn-tune interpolated here.)


Ach! Donnerwelter! Himmel! Ach!
(Medley of indescribable noises rendered by full orchestra, symbolic,
partly of a German band that is being severely kicked by an irate householder,
and partly innumerable blutwursts suddenly arrested in mid-career.)
Ach! Ach!
'Dot vos not fair to shoot in der back!'
Who is this that as dared to face
Our hosts unconquered, and, pace by pace,
Presses us backward, and ever back.
Over the blasted, desolate rack?
What of the plans we planned so well?
We looked for victory - this is Hell!
Hold! Hold!
Mark the heaps of our comrades bold;
Look on the corpses of Culture's sons -
Martyrs slain by a savage's guns.
Respite now, in this feast of death!
Time! An Armistice! Give us breath!
Nay? Then we cry to the whole wide world,
Shame on our foe for a plea denied!
Savages! Brutes! Barbarians all!
Here shall we fight with our backs to the wall!


Boom! Boom! Boom!
(Ten more thousands gone to their doom.)
Boom!
(Bass drums only, for 679,358 bars, symbolising a prolonged artillery war.
Into this there breaks suddenly the frenzied howl of the long-bodied,
short-legged, large-deaded dog already mentioned.)
Hate! Hate! Hate! Hate!
We spit on the British here at our gate!
Foe of humanity! Curst of the world!
On him alone let our hate be hurled!
For his smiling sneers at the Junkers' creed,
For his cold rebuke to a Kaiser's greed;
For his calm disdain of our noble race,
We fling our spite in his scornful face.
Under the sea and high in the air,
Death shall seek for him everywhere;
The lurking death in the submarine,
The swooping death in the air machine,
Alone of them all he had sealed our fate!
Hate! Hate! HATE!
(Prolonged discord, followed by deep, mysterious silence - imposed by censor -
for 793 bars.)


Bang!
(Deep staccato note as of a bursting blutwurst.)
Ow! Wow! Wow!
(Dying howl of a stricken hound. Silence again for an indefinite number of
bars. Then, in countless bars, saloons, tea-shops, coffee-houses, cafes and
restaurants throughout the British Empire and most of Europe, a sudden, loud,
triumphant chorus, toned by a note of relief, and dominated by 'The Marseillaise'
and 'Tipperary.' A somewhat uncertain but distinctly nasal cheer is heard from
the direction of New York.)


Peace! Peace!
At last the sounds of the big guns cease;
At last the beast is chased to his lair,
And we breathe again of the good, clean air.
The gates have fallen! The Allies win!
And the boys are macrhing about Berlin!
The Kaiser's down; and the story goes
A British Tommy has pulled his nose.
The German eagle has got the pip:
Vive les Allies!...Hooroo!...Hip! Hip!...