Escape



Sing me to sleep when I go West;
But sing you, soft and low,
No song from the olden masters'
Or I shall not want to go:
Not Schubert, wondrous harmonist,
Not great Beethoven, Grieg nor Liszt,
Nor any rare old melodist;
  For I'd hate the passing so.

I'll hate to part with the good green trees
  And the birds and the soft, kind sky;
For I've abiding love for these,
  And I shall not want to die.
But, most of all, shall I doubly grieve
For the joys of earth when I have to leave
Those melodies to which I cleave
  When the lust for life runs high.

Sing me to sleep when I go west
  The latest thing you know
In jazz; and sing with brutal zest
  While the saxophones moan low
And the squawkers squawk and the banjoes strum
To the bang and the boom of the big bass drum;
Then I'll come out for Kingdom Come
  And gladly shall I go.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

51 sec read
87

Quick analysis:

Scheme Abxbaxab cdcdeeed Ababfffb
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 816
Words 167
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

 · 1876 · Auburn
 · 1938 · Melbourne

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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    "Escape" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Dec. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/6311/escape>.

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