Playtime



Brothers!
(I address myself to that chosen few - which includes you,
My dear reader - who
Are men of understanding, bright intellect and horse-sense, and to no others).
Brothers!
There comes one little period in the day
When each of us may say,
'Away!
Away with care and thoughts of toil and stress and pain!'
And, as we journey home in car or tram or train,
Let us leave office worries far behind,
Banish domestic troubles from the mind,
And just go gay.
Say,
Once a day,
For just a few brief minutes let us play.
Let us be joyous, and, with quip and quirk,
Forget the drudgery of daily work,
And, from this daily column
Banish the somnolent, the sad, the solemn.
Let us foregather, brothers, and discuss
Eliminating all the fume and fuss
The vagaries of our uncertain weather,
Let us commune together
Upon the steadfastness of politicians,
The fate of nations, and the strange conditions
Imposed on us in this, our daily life . . .
Mayhap, indeed, the wife
Waits home to greet our coming with a tale
Of household woes to turn a strong man pale;
Mayhap, forsooth, our business affairs
Have loaded us all day with heavy cares.
Leave all behind.
Shed, for a while, all trouble from the mind.
Let us
Discuss
The hot sock
And the short frock:
Of men and modes and manners let us talk,
Giving dull care a cunning miss in baulk.
We WILL be gay!
Just once a day!
We shall consider strikes in merry mood
And even joke about the price of food,
And all that sort of thing.
So it may bring
Joy to our hearts and to our worn minds ease.
I shall do all the talking, if you please,
And if, perchance, you cry, 'How bright!
 How clever!'
Why, then, of course - However,
The thread of my discourse is somewhat broken,
But, brothers, I have spoken!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:36 min read
61

Quick analysis:

Scheme AbbaAcccddeeccccffgghhiijjkkllmmeehhnnofccppqqrrsiitt
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,692
Words 325
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 53

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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