Analysis of The Minglers



A sight that gives me much distress
Is George without his trousers,
Garbed, scantily, in bathing dress
Proscribed by saintly Wowsers,
And Gerty, gay and forward flirt,
Without the regulation shirt.

Though 'tis a fearsome sight, I ween,
When jam tins strew the shingle,
It is a far more shocking scene
When Bert and Benjy mingle
With Maude and Winnie in the wave;
It hurts to see them so behave.

The melancholy dead marine
Sown thick along the beaches,
The can that held the late sardine,
Or potted prawn, or peaches,
Are things of innocence beside
Gay Tom and Topsy in the tide.

I hold by stern morality,
Depite the worldings' scoffing,
And though it pains my soul to see
A fish tin in the offing,
'Tis naught beside the things I feel
Whene'er I hear Belinda squeal.

Indeed, this tin that held sardine
My sad soul sorely vexes.
The fish it harbored might have been
Unwed, and mixed in sexes!
Good brothers, can you wonder then,
That seaside damsels mix with men?

A pile of picnic scraps, 'tis true,
Can raise a mild commotion.
But what of John and Jane and Sue
Mixed in a single ocean?
A sight that stabs me to the heart
Is Billo smoodging with his tart.

But hark, my brothers, yester eve
I had a wondrous vision.
The sun was just about to leave,
With his well-known precision,
When I espied upon the sand
A tin with a familiar brand.

And, as I gazed, my limbs grew limp
And giddiness came o'er me;
For from it stepped a fish-like imp
That smirked and bowed before me!
His puckered features seemed to be
Awry with spite and devilry.

'Young man,' he said, 'You're wasting time.
Why do you sit there mooning?
So brave a youth, just in his prime,
Should find more joy in spooning.
For see! the ocean hath its pearls.
Go forth and mingle with the girls!'

And from the tins that lay about
Upon the silver shingle
I heard a wee shrill chorus shout,
'Young man, go forth and mingle!'
And then I knew each empty tin
Concealed its special imp within.

I know my eye grew wide and bright,
Despite a life ascetic,
And from the narrow path of right
I felt a tug magnetic,
That sought to draw me o'er the sand
Out to the siren-haunted strand.

I felt the red blood course anew,
I felt my pulses tingle;
And still the tiny chorus grew:
'Young man, go forth and mingle!' ....
Then, from the old, bashed can I saw
A lordly lobster wave a calw.

'Good fellow, have a care!' he said,
'Stray not from pathways upper!
I am the ghost of one long dead,
Slain for a sinful supper.
But once good works were done by me
Amongst the sinners of the sea.

'In life I roamed the vasty deep
Engaged upon a mission
Which was my fellow-fish to keep
From swimming to perdition.
Now I am dead' (his voice grew thin)
'Alas! they mingle in the tin!

'Beware the blood that bounds and leaps!
Your sinful feelings throttle.
Beware the imp that leers and peeps
From out each tin and bottle!
A submarine Chapzander speaks.
Beware when gay Belinda squeaks!'

Lo, as he spoke my blood grew chill,
The spell no longer bound me,
The impish chorus now was still
And silence reigned around me.
The ghostly lobster disappeared;
My heart of base desire was cleared.

But, like a man inspired, I saw
His cause for intervening.
His sad, sweet face, his waving claw
To me were full of meaning.
Indeed, a sainted fish was he,
A very Wowser of the sea.

You smile, good friend?  But ah, be sure
'Tis not a theme for scoffing;
For well, too well, I know the lure
of fish tins in the offing.
A devil lurks inside each tine
To tempt unwary souls to sin.

And, top this day, I fell a thrill
'Mid tins upon the shingle;
I seem to hear that chorus shrill:
'Young man, go forth and mingle!'
And yet, 'tis naught to what I feel
Whene'er I hear Belinda squeal.


Scheme axaabb cdcdee cfcfgg hihijJ cacfcc kckcll mcmcnn ohohhk pipiqq rdrDcc sisinn cdkDtd uvuvhh wcwccc xdxdyy zhzh1 1 titihh 2 i2 icc zDzdjj
Poetic Form
Metre 01111101 1101110 11000101 011101 01010101 0100101 11010111 1111010 11011101 1101010 11010001 11111101 0100101 1101010 01110101 1101110 11110001 11010001 11110100 1011 01111111 0110010 11010111 1110101 01111101 111101 01110111 0101010 11011101 111111 0111111 1101010 11110101 1001010 01111101 111111 1111011 1101010 01110111 1111010 1110101 01100101 01111111 011101 11110111 1101011 1110111 011101 11111101 111111 11011011 111101 11010111 11010101 01011101 0101010 11011101 1111010 01111101 01110101 11111101 0101010 01010111 1101010 111111001 11010101 11011101 1111010 01010101 1111010 11011111 0110101 11010111 111110 11011111 1101010 11110111 01010101 0111011 0101010 11110111 11011 11111111 01110001 01011101 1101010 01011101 1111010 01011 01110101 11111111 0111011 01010111 0101011 0101001 111101011 110101011 111010 11111101 1101110 01010111 0101101 11111111 110111 11111101 1110010 01010111 11010111 01111101 1101010 11111101 1111010 01111111 1110101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 3,584
Words 702
Sentences 49
Stanzas 19
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 114
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 149
Words per stanza (avg) 37
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

3:30 min read
34

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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