The Children of the Sun



The Children of the Sun are out,
About the hills and beaches
The stolid burghers halo and stout,
The tailored sheik, the city lout,
And plain blokes with their peaches,
And dinkum coves alert and brown;
While over all the sun shines down.

The Children of the Sun are prone
To sunlight, play and pleasure;
And sober-minded mentors groan
And shake their beads and gravely moan
O'er all this love of leisure.
This lust for sport and sun they say
Will surely bring its reckoning day.

The Children of the Sun heed not,
But laugh and gather vigor,
Where summer days shine gold and hot,
They bask in many a sylvan spot
To meet a new year's rigor.
And who shall say they are not wise?
Strength languishes when pleasure dies.

The Children of the Sun but know
That while the sun is shining
And glad life beckons they must go;
For souls too long akin to woe
Lost all thro' much repining.
Rejuvenation bids them hence,
Then who shall cry 'Improvidence'?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

52 sec read
101

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAABCC DEDDEFF GEGGEHH IJIIJXB
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 923
Words 174
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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