C. J. Dennis

“ Must we, for their neglect, bear all the blame?
Nay, Master, we have come to love our land!
But see, the task Thou givest us is great;
The load is heavy and the way is long!
Hold Thou our enemy without the gate;
When we have rested then shall we be strong. ”

“ While the black man slowly profited by what his fathers saw,
While he learned to fashion weapons and establish tribal law,
There came a band of pale-faced men in ships, from oversea,
Who viewed the land, then shook their heads and sadly said, "Dear me!"
Then they landed rum and school books, and a trusty gun or two,
And started out to "civilize," as whites are apt to do.
They interviewed the black man and remarked, "It's very sad,
But the use you make of this great land is positively bad;
Why, you haven't got a sheep or cow about the blessed place! ”

“ And again I yearned in space.
Then, Light of my lives! Is the time not yet?
Say, in what distant life—
In what dim age that is still to come
May I win and call you wife?
Still high above! My Love, my Love! ”

“ To me all powerful as I dreamed.
My life was staid, my rates were paid,
And peace was in my mind.
Nor recked I of unruly men
To evil deeds inclined—
Strange, primal, atavistic men
Who shock the peaceful citizen. ”

“ When they whispered low of a watching foe,
Greedy for gold and corn;
A foe grown jealous of trade and power,
Marking the treasure, and waiting the hour.
And, e'en when the smoke of the raiders' ships
Trailed out o'er the northern skies,
His laugh was loud: "'Tis a summer cloud,"
Said the Fool in his Paradise. ”

“ When ye have borne the heat, and wisely sown,
And every corner of the vineyard filled
With goodly growth, the land shall be your own.
Then shall your sons and your sons' sons rejoice.
Then shall the race speak with a conqueror's mouth ”

“ Nay, why do foolish politicians strive
To win a fleeting popularity?
In vain, in vain, they jealously contrive
To turn the doting Public Eye from Me.
What was this land, this nation, destined for?
For Art, Trade, Politics? All out of place. ”

“ That is the girl he thinks you are."
All fondly curious with love—
(Half guessing what he would lay bare)
He rifled her heart's treasure-trove,
And found—a stranger's image there.
"This is the man she loves!" ”

“ Then I'll cuddle my girl and I'll quaff my ale
As we sit on the leafy floor;
And when the book and the beer jug fail,
I'll cuddle my girl some more.
For jugs give out and books get slow,
But you take my tip for square—
Though the bough and the book and the beer jug go,
The girl, she's always there. ”

“ Oh, there's little room for weaklings where the timber ranges rise.
When above the welcome shingles lazy smoke, all curling blue,
With the forest hazes mingles, and the long day's toil is through;
When across the little clearing children race with greeting cries—
No man asks for further cheering where the timber ranges rise? ”

“ Among the sinners of the sea.
"In life I roamed the vasty deep
Engaged upon a mission,
Which was my fellow-fish to keep
From swimming to perdition.
Now I am dead" (his voice grew thin) ,
"Alas! they mingle in the tin!
"Beware the blood that bounds and leaps! ”

“ So doth the warning fall on heedless ears.
"Guard ye the treasure if the gift be meet"—
(Loudly we call the odds, we cheer the play.)
"For he who fears the burden and the heat
Shall glean the harvest of a squandered day." ”

“ Is the little song I'm singin' you of Wheat, Wheat, Wheat.
Plantin' things—an' grantin' things is goin' as they should,
An' the weather altogether is behavin' pretty good—
Is a pleasure in a measure for a man that likes the game,
An' my father he would rather raise a crop than make a name. ”

“ The crows are flying heavily, and cawing overhead;
The sleepy milking cows are lowing sof'ly in the shed,
And above them, in the rafters, all the fowls have gone to bed,
When the sun's behind the hill. ”

“ Those who spend their days in drudging have to take their joy in lumps.
Yoke 'em up an' get a move on! Gayest times must have an end,
There's a weary track to travel when you've nothing left to spend. ”

“ He could talk on any subject—from the weather and the crops
To astronomy and Euclid, and he never minded stops;
And the lack of a companion didn't lay him on the shelf,
For he'd stand before a looking-glass and argue with himself. ”

“ Because the breeze blew sou'-by-east across the China Sea ;
Or else, because the thing was willed through all eternity
By gods that rule the rushing stars, or gods long æons dead,
The earth is made to smile again, and living things are fed. ”

“ And in a coarse, ungentle voice
He fires those stories back at me.
He hath no wit for telling tales,
He laughs where ne'er a point there be;
But sits and murders honest yarns,
And claims them as his propertee. ”

“ Now my father was a farmer, an' he used to sit and laugh
At the "fools o' life," he called 'em, livin' on the other half.
Dyin' lonely, missin' only that one joy that makes life sweet—
Just the joy of useful labour, such as comes of growin' wheat.
Wheat, Wheat, Wheat! Let the foolish scheme an' cheat;
But I'd rather, like my father, when my span o' life's complete,
Feel I'd lived by helpin' others ”

“ An', square an' all, I got no use
For them poor, shrinkin' guys
Who, at the sound of choice abuse,
Turn pale, an' rolls their eyes.
Who fades and wilts an' calls for nurse,
To hear a blithered soldier's curse. ”

“ Wheat
"Sowin' things an' growin' things, an' watchin' of 'em grow;
That's the game," my father said, an' father ought to know.
"Settin' things an' gettin' things to grow for folks to eat:
That's the life," my father said, "that's very hard to beat." ”

“ Let them forgo their wrangles, curses, howls,
And strive to build a little place for fowls.
'Tis sheer presumption, surely, to compare
Myself with statesmen in high honour decked;
Yet do I feel emboldened to declare
That I am more deserving of respect.
They, by their brawls, a mighty work have marred ”

“ Throng the streets at morn and even, while the traffic screams and roars;
Where 'tis ever keen contriving,
Each man with his neighbour striving;
Where tall houses hang together, and there ain't no out-of-doors? ”

“ Pride of wives and pride of mothers—
⁠Pride that conquers fears.
What the Little Homes shall suffer,
What the Little Homes shall pay
Must be more than sturdy fighters,
More than women's grief to-day. ”

“ And the act of recognition.
Even by a politician,
Has not ever yet been known to make or mend.
And the man who holds a lamp-post up without much fret or fuss,
He may "recognize a principle" and feel quite virtuous. ”

“ While the discontented anthropoids still do things.
And continue to be discontented, of course; but that's all in the game.
From the Age of Apes,
To this generation,
Mankind thus escapes
Absolute stagnation.
Here's the only consolation my philosophy is giving:
Discontentment with existence is your sole excuse for living. ”

“ Who conversed in quaite a bellow,
And he patronised me laike a high Bashaw.
And his questions, rudely personal, Ai hardly could enduah.
The Government should teach its people mannahs, Ai am suah! ”

“ Sounding in each mountain rill,
Echoing from hill to hill . . .
In the lonely, silent places
Men lift up their glad, wet faces,
And their thanks ask no explaining—
It is raining—raining—raining! ”

“ Seeks to purloin. Go, seize the man
Before the trail is cold!"
"Those spires against the sky," said he,
"Surcharged with beauty are to me."
"I give the man in charge!" I cried,
"He is on evil bent! ”

“ Such as politics, arithmetic and economic waste.
(You're excused from reading farther if you've not.)
But arithmetic is boring to a certain type of man
Who is loth to strain his intellect too far. . . .
Which reminds me, opportunely, of the modern Party Plan
And the story of T. Trimmer, M.H.R.
As a lad young Thomas Trimmer longed to serve the Commonweal;
To devote to great reforms his manhood's prime.
Oh, he yearned to serve his country with a patriotic zeal;
And proposed to give the matter his whole time.
You will note the youthful ardour—His whole time, he said, no less. ”

“ Uv soulful coots who scorn to write fer gain;
To see True Art bloom down in Chowder Bay,
An' Culcher jump the joint in Spadger's Lane.
Gawstruth! Fer us life's got no joy to spare,
We're short uv bird-songs, "soarin' clear an' pure." ”

“ By the foes of patient Wombat, where the Muddy River flows.
Up at Wombat Peter Dawking
Held a meeting in the hall,
And he'd spent an hour in talking
On the far-flung Empire's Call,
When a local greybeard, rising, smote him with this verbal brick:
"Are or are yeh not in favour of the bridge across the crick?"
Peter just ignored the question,
Proudly patriotic man;
Understand a mean suggestion
Men like Peter never can,
Or that free enlightened voters look on all Great Things as rot,
While a Burning Local Question fires each local patriot. ”

“ That never is allayed.
Yet, ne'er by hint or sign does he
Suggest that it is "up to me."
Is he too proud? Well, truly, no;
To beg he's not ashamed.
Yet, his neglect in that respect
Is scarcely to be blamed. ”

“ While the wondrous words and phrases only genius could produce
Roared and rumbled, fast and faster, in the throat of that Old Master—
Oaths and curses tipped with lightning, cracklin' flames of fierce abuse.
Then we knew the man before us was a Master of our callin' ”

“ Bill got in edgeways, but that there insurance chap
Just filled himself with atmosphere, and took the second lap.
I saw our man was getting dazed, and sort of hypnotized,
And they oughter pulled the agent up right there, as I advised.
"See here—" Bill started, husky; but the agent came again,
And talked right on for four hours good—from six o'clock to ten.
Then Bill began to crumple up, and weaken at the knees,
When all at once he ups and shouts, "Here, give a bloke a breeze! ”

“ And, as he spoke, his beard waved in the breeze.
"First it was the Grimble Grubs—
As I sez at startin'—
Which they et his tater crop,
Which it troubled Martin.
"Now, this Martin was a farmer with a scientific mind"—
(It was thus the bushman started, as his beard blew out behind) —
"He farmed the land and, understand, his luck was all tip-top,
Till them there little Grimble Grubs got in his tater crop.
"P'raps you have heard of Grimble Grubs; more likely p'raps you've not;
When once they taste your taters you can look to lose the lot. ”

“ Heroes of an ancient order; men who punched across the border;
Vanished giants of the sixties; puncher-princes of the track.
Now we heard the timbers straining heard the waggon's loud complainin',
And the master cried triumphant, as he swung 'em into line,
As they put their shoulders to it, lifted her, and pulled her through it:
"That's the way we useter do it in the days o' sixty-nine!"
Near the foot of Mount St. Leonard lives an old, enfeebled party
Who retired from bullock-punchin' at the age of eighty-three.
If you seek him folk will mention, merely, that he draws the pension ”

“ Then, for certain hours he works between the dawning and the dark,
And delivers one day's work for one day's pay.
This industrial arrangement has advantages for both,
If employer and employed are honest men. ”

“ His mode of speech is rude.
He mentions "stomach" in a bark
You'd hear across the street.
He lacks those little ways that mark
A gentleman discreet.
Good books he seldom seems to read;
In Art all taste he lacks. ”

“ And when aught concerning horses called for knowledge in the forces
Came a hurried, anxious message, "Hang the vet! Send Got-a-Fag!"
Then, one morning, he was missing, and a soldier who had seen him
Riding for the foe's entrenchments bade his mates abandon hope. ”

“ When the weary war is over, back to his old cattle station,
If luck holds, he'll one day journey, casually drop his swag,
Drawling, "Been up yonder—fightin' . . . Not much doin' . . . mostly skitin' . . . ”

“ An' Rose was restin' in me arms,
'Er cheek against my lips.
A precious lot I dreamed of skids,
A lot I thought o' slips.
I only know we never thinks—
I know we never dreams
Of folks out walkin' on that road ;
Till, sudden, Lena screams. . . . ”

“ Ain't chu mighty smart an' clever;
Try'n to carry arf a dozen things at once.
No back answers now! You hussy! Don't chu dare talk back at me
Or I'll . . . . Nelly, did ju give them eggs to Bill?
Wot? Chu never? Well I . . . . ”

“ Feed the calves, an' pack the—Yes, indeed, ju will!
Get the sepy-rater ready.
Woa, there, Baldy—steady, steady.
Bail up. Stop-er! Hi, Matilder! Mary! BILL!
Well, uv all th' . . . . Now you've done it.
Wait till Dad comes 'ome to-night;
When 'e sees the mess you've—Don't stand starin' there! ”

“ In the city, more's the pity, thousands live an' thousands die
Never carin', never sparin' pains that fruits may multiply;
Breathin', livin', never givin'; greedy but to have an' take,
Dyin' with no day behind 'em lived for fellow-mortals' sake. ”

“ For might was right, and such a thing as "law" was quite unknown.
But this dusky old reformer in the ages long ago,
One morning in the Eocene discovered how to "throw";
He studied well and practised hard until he'd learned the art ”