Analysis of Aesthete in the Avenue



Within the wooded avenue I stood,
And I was proud.
I looked upon the scene and found it good;
For here, I vowed,
Reigned Beauty rare.  Sweet praises filled my mouth
For this, the loveliest city of the south;
Yet not a soul could hear,
Altho' my lyric praise with fervor flowed;
For, as I spoke, there rumbled down the road
A lorry-load of beer.

I tried again.  I spoke of civic pride,
Aesthetic joy.
With those rare phrases, culled from far and wide,
Poets employ.
I waxed in aphoristic ecstasy,
Hymning the loveliness of sky and tree;
Yet not a single soul
Gave heed to me; for sudden thunders grew
As round the bend there lumbered into view
 A waggon piled with coal.

'Goths!' I exclaimed.  'Did you raise Beauty here
In this green place
But for the sport of flinging coal and beer
 In her sweet face?'
A large truck missed me by a hair's-breadth then
Manned by a crew of large, unlovely men
 Who jeered and darned my eyes.
'Vandals!' I shouted.  'Nay, repent your sins!'
Then leapt again to dodge a load of skins
 That smelled unto the skies.

Still on they came, truck, waggon, rank on rank,
 I dodged, I leapt;
The threw myself upon a grassy bank
 And there I wept,
Wept for the city . . . A park-keeper came,
A mean, ungracious man, who took my name.
'O man!' I cried. 'Alas,
See how I weep.  Must beauty disappear?'
Said he: 'Buzz orf!  You can't do that there 'ere.
Spoilin' our nice noo grass!'


Scheme ABABCCDEEF GHGHIIJKKJ DLFLMMNOON PQPQRRSFXS
Poetic Form Tetractys  (50%)
Etheree  (20%)
Metre 010101011 0111 1101010111 1111 1101110111 110110101 110111 111011101 1111110101 010111 1101111101 0101 1111011101 1001 1101100 1011101 110101 1111110101 110111011 01111 1101111101 0111 1101110101 0011 0111110111 11011111 110111 1011010111 1101110111 111001 111111111 1111 011010101 0111 1101001101 01111111 111101 111111001 1111111111 110111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,371
Words 268
Sentences 27
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 10, 10, 10, 10
Lines Amount 40
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 263
Words per stanza (avg) 67
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:18 min read
96

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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