Dawn



Here, in soft darkness where the whole night thro',
Dreamless, my quiet garden slumbered well.
Night's soothing fingers all adrip with dew
Crept in and out, weaving a mystic spell
O'er wilting bud and bell;
Now with deft touches deepening tints anew.
Now lifting up some languid suppliant who
Had wooed the sun too well.

In the grey twilight tall trees seem to yawn
And, waking, stretch their mighty limbs on high.
A small bird cheeps; and, silver in the dawn,
The jewelled wattles to a soft wind sigh.
Hard etched against the sky
The timbered hill-tops stand forth boldly drawn. . . .
A sunbeam, laughing, trips across the lawn,
And smiling day is nigh.

The kindly offices of night are done.
A grey thrush carols forth his matin hymn.
Then proud, triumphant of a new day won,
The magpie's trumpet tops a lofty limb.
By the pool's mirrored brim
The drowsing daisies open one by one:
'Wake, brothers, wake!  Here comes our lord, the Sun!
Awake and worship him!'

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

52 sec read
105

Quick analysis:

Scheme XABAABBA CDCDDCCD EFEFFEEF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 946
Words 171
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8

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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    Who wrote the poem ״Invictus״?
    A Thomas Hardy
    B Sylvia Plath
    C William Ernest Henley
    D Oscar Wilde