Analysis of A Warning to Ladies

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis 1876 (Auburn) – 1938 (Melbourne)



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.


Scheme AXBXXBXABBA XCDDCEFGGF HIJJIXHAAH XKLLKMMNNM AEAEXOAAO
Poetic Form
Metre 110 1111111111 001111111 0111111 1111111 10111111101 101011101011 111101011 011111 0010111 11110001 1111110111101 101001110 1111111 010011 1111110101 11111110001111 11011111 101111 1010101 01111011101 011101110101 1010110101 11010 1111010 1110101001 11111001010101 1110011011 1110111 0111111 1110111101 11011111 111011101011 11111110 01110110 101001111011 11010100111111 0110101101 11101010 1010110 11100110111 10010111111 11110101 11110101110011 10111001101 11101101110101 111101101111011 110101111 11000111 011101000101
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 2,128
Words 393
Sentences 20
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 11, 10, 10, 10, 9
Lines Amount 50
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 338
Words per stanza (avg) 78
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

2:01 min read
81

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis, better known as C. J. Dennis, was an Australian poet known for his humorous poems, especially "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke", published in the early 20th century. Though Dennis's work is less well known today, his 1915 publication of The Sentimental Bloke sold 65,000 copies in its first year, and by 1917 he was the most prosperous poet in Australian history. Together with Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, both of whom he had collaborated with, he is often considered among Australia's three most famous poets. While attributed to Lawson by 1911, Dennis later claimed he himself was the 'laureate of the larrikin'. When he died at the age of 61, the Prime Minister of Australia Joseph Lyons suggested he was destined to be remembered as the 'Australian Robert Burns'. more…

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