A Chantey of Labor's Lost

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



There on the quay sobbed Bones, A.B.,
And he took me by the hand.
Says he to me, 'I've quit the sea
An' I'm huntin' a berth on land.
‘Er doom ‘as come; an' the days o' rum,
Salt-‘orse an' tar is over;
For these is the days of the popinjays
 An' the end of the deep-sea rover
Oh,
Them tough ole, rough ole, rollicking lads
The shell-back, deep-sea rover.

'They've finished with me,' says Bones, A.B.,
'For they've finished with seamanship.
What they're shippin' of late is a milliner's mate
With a housemaid's mop on the ‘ip.
But ask ‘im the rig of a barque or a brig,
Or the toons of the chanteys sung
By a buck he-male in the days of sail
When me an' me mates was young
Oh,
Them mad ole, bad ole, rollicking days
When mates an' the world was young.

'Before ‘e was born I'd rounded the Horn
Ten times in ships o' sail,
Close-reefed an' fast in the bellerin' blast
Of the mother-in-law of a gale.
Bare-decked I been, an' wrecked I been,
Mate-hazed, marooned, shanghai-ed.
But shiver me gob, I knoo me job
In the days when the seas was wide
Oh,
Them reckless, feckless, rollicking days
When faith and the seas was wide.

'So I'm leavin' the sea,' says Bones, A.B.,
'For the sea don't need me now.
An' I'm shapin' a course to valet a ‘orse
Or coddle a milkin' cow.
All that they asks of shipboard tasks
Is a dood of a doll's-eye weaver;
An' I'm missin' ‘em bad; them mates I ‘ad
So lovin' the sea they leave ‘er
Oh,
Them tearin', swearin', devil-may-carin',
Lovable lads wot leave ‘er.'

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:30 min read
63

Quick analysis:

Scheme abcbxdcdExd afxfxghgEig xhxhjxxkEik alclxdxdEjd
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,473
Words 290
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 11, 11, 11, 11

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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