An "Ode to the Moon" did he indite
With his two-and-half soul-power.
('Twas the child of a starlit summer night,
Begot by a gloomy hour.)
And he vowed it was a work immense,
And he quoted it a lot,
And be published it at his own expense;
But the cold, hard world said - "Rot!"
And he wrote him ringing verse of horse,
And the stockman, and his pipe,
And the brooding bushland; but, of course,
The world just murmured - "Tripe!"
So he sat him down for another fling,
And his time-exposure mind
Evolved a topical sort of thing,
Of a gay and hum'rous kind.
And he looked to see the world go wild,
And laugh until it cried;
But the verse was poor and the humor mild,
And - "Bosh!" the tired world sighed.
Then he oiled his weird, ball-bearing mind,
In a dull, despairing mood,
And he wrote a thing of a cryptic kind,
Which nobody understood.
'Twas an ode to the "Umph" and the "Thingmebob,"
With a lilt and a right good ring,
And hints of a smirk, a snarl, a sob,
And a murky murmuring.
Nay, nobody understood a word,
Nor strove to understand;
But few dared say it was absurd,
So most agreed 'twas "Grand!"
Then be let his hair grow lank and long,
And an air intense he got,
And ever he strove to nurse in song
The cult of the "Dunnowhat."
And now he never writes in vain,
But a famous man is he,
With a ten soul-power and a chuck-lathe brain,
And an air of mysterie.
So, of his lot take heed; I wot
If you aspire to fame,
Don't waste a tune on horse or moon,
But rave of Whatsitsname;
It's tame,
But still it's Whatsitsname.
First published in The Bulletin, 9 April 1908
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
