The Heritage Of Ease

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



Are we so flabby, and are we so soft?
I have pondered the question long and oft;
And happy-go-lucky we may appear
When the fat and easy days are here,
When it's easy come and it's easy go,
And there's never a long, hard row to hoe.

But exceedingly hard and remarkably tough
Are the terms that fit when the days grow rough,
And Australia faces the jobs ahead
That fall in the seasons of stress and dread.
And the sturdier stuff of the pioneers
Has not all gone with the old, stern years.

And the tasks we faced and the loads we bore,
When the folly of nations brought us war,
Were not too many and not too great
To bend our backs or to halt our gait.
For the same old metal they tried anew,
And then, as ever, the stuff rang true.

But the soft times came; and the seed we sowed
On the days we travelled the easy road,
We must harvest now, as we all repent
Of a flabbiness passed to a Government
And nurtured there, while we rage and rear
To be up and waging the fight once more.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:00 min read
105

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXAXBB CCDDEE FFGGHH XXXXAF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 962
Words 197
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6

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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