Echuca



With wood and wool for Adelaide
The paddle boats came down
When here this spritely river maid
Built up her river town.
Flanked by the green of spreading gums,
Where trade in waxing volume comes
Her industry to crown.

Those were the careless, easy days
The days of old romance,
When men were prone to casual ways,
But she had marked her chance,
As gateway of the north and east,
To share one day the coming feast
Of this wide land's advance.

Now she, grown old in count of years,
Stays young, who dreams her fate
Is to arise above her peers
And serve a sister State,
Handmaid of kindlier kinship when
Madness and folly fall from men
And they, with towns, grow great.

The paddle boats, with wool and wood,
Churned lazily along
When peace seemed sure, when life seemed good,
Ere all a world went wrong.
Strife wells; yet, valiant as of yore
Old Murray sings without her door
Of hope an ageless song.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

50 sec read
108

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCCB DEDEFFE GHGHIIH JKJKLLK
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 878
Words 168
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 7, 7, 7, 7

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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