It Isn't Cricket



Hello, old cobber.  Well, what's on your mind?
You're lookin' awful gloomy and mysterious
Done in your dough?  The horses been unkind?
 Nobody ill?  I hope it's nothin' serious.
Aw, don't be funny.  Foreign what?  Affairs?
Well, they ain't happ'nin' this side of the Murray.
Nothin' in my young life, them blighters' cares,
Why go so far away to look for worries?

What?  League o' Nations?  Look, you ain't allowed
Them sort of jokes.  There's nothin' goin' to happen.
I lose no sleep about that comic crowd
A lot of glum old gaspots, always yappin'
Most of 'em foreigners! . . . Aw, boy, wake up!
That paper talk don't cause my blood to curdle . . .
Time we was concentratin' on the Cup.
Dam politics.  What's fancied for the hurdle?

World politics?  A grown-up cove like you!
Doin' your block that way!  It's childish!  Reely!
I know a dozen foreign coves, I do
All ignorint.  Not edjicated freely,
Like me an' you; an' - you know - insular.
Reel narrer-minded . . . Sport?  They couldn't stick it
No staminer. They ain't built like we are . . .
Aw, let's talk somethin' sensible, like cricket.

War? . . . Listen to him!  Ain't you wise to war?
  Just politicians' talk - coves of that kidney ...
Eh?  Troopships?  Headin' Melbourne way?  What for? ...
Perish the crows?  They've just bombarded Sydney? ...
Look, this is murder!  What's the bloomin' game?
Sydney?  My brother?  All my wife's relations!
Bombarded! ... Here; some coot must take the blame!
Where's the police?  Where's this here League o' Nations?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:21 min read
79

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCX EFEFGHGH IHIDJKJK XDJDLMLM
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,494
Words 251
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 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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