A fool and a bag in a belt of scrub,
Cloudless skies and the still hot days,
And the countryside's in a mad hubbub;
Terror is here and the world's ablaze.
Five thousand sheep went West today,
Bell's home at the crossing and Casey's pub;
And the cause of it all is a world away;
A fool with a bag who passed the scrub.
An oaf with a match in a mile of grass,
Where yesterday the skies shone clear;
But fury leapt where he came to pass;
And now, ten miles away, comes fear.
Men toil and sweat in the reeking smoke
That curling drifts to a sky of brass.
And now black ruin and homeless folk
Are toll to an oaf in a mile of grass.
If the fool be caught can the fool repay?
What is to do but build again,
And hope for the dawn of a better day,
When folly is shorn from the ways of men;
What is to do but hope and pray.
While the scars heal slow in a blackened land,
That the fool shall no more pass this way
With the seeds of terror in his hand.
First published in The Herald, 8 January 1932;
and later in
Random Verse by C.J. Dennis, 1952.
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
Cloudless skies and the still hot days,
And the countryside's in a mad hubbub;
Terror is here and the world's ablaze.
Five thousand sheep went West today,
Bell's home at the crossing and Casey's pub;
And the cause of it all is a world away;
A fool with a bag who passed the scrub.
An oaf with a match in a mile of grass,
Where yesterday the skies shone clear;
But fury leapt where he came to pass;
And now, ten miles away, comes fear.
Men toil and sweat in the reeking smoke
That curling drifts to a sky of brass.
And now black ruin and homeless folk
Are toll to an oaf in a mile of grass.
If the fool be caught can the fool repay?
What is to do but build again,
And hope for the dawn of a better day,
When folly is shorn from the ways of men;
What is to do but hope and pray.
While the scars heal slow in a blackened land,
That the fool shall no more pass this way
With the seeds of terror in his hand.
First published in The Herald, 8 January 1932;
and later in
Random Verse by C.J. Dennis, 1952.
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
