There's a Good Time Coming



There's a good time coming in the golden by-and-by:
And I wish, oh, how I wish that it would come!
There's a wise day dawning, by the portents in the sky,
To usher in the glad millenium.
When heaven-sent technocracy displaces our democracy,
Goodbye to man's hypocrisy and greed.
But I wonder, oh, I wonder if we'll all be planted under
Ere the good time gladdens human need.

There's a good time coming, but the road we have to go
Is strewn with all the wreckage of the past.
And there's quite a lot of salvage ere we end this worldly woe
 And gain the golden terminus at last.
The wonders of machinery that dominates our scenery
Have left the blundering ancients far behind;
But I wonder, oh, I wonder if we haven't made a blunder
In neglecting that machine, the human mind.

There's a good time coming; but the echo answers, 'When?'
And I wish, oh, I wish that I could say.
Two thousand years have scarce sufficed to change the minds of men;
We may hardly hope to change them in a day.
I would not cry calamity when others aim at amnity,
And hope within me ever conquered fear.
But I wonder, oh, I wonder, when the clouds are torn asunder,
If you and I are likely to be here.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:09 min read
88

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDED FGFGCHEH IJIJDXEX
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,160
Words 226
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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