At a recent meeting of the International Radio Union in London, Mr R. A. Watt, a wireless expert, revealed how wireless atmospherics, born with a head and tail, drop their tails and eventually split themselves in half.
Sadly sobbing, sadly sobbing,
Rolls the restless wireless sea,
Where the wireless waves go bobbing
Up and down so dolefully.
And nothing there the gloom assails,
Depression to undo,
Till some merry little static
In a manner most erratic --
Till statics drop their little tails
And split themselves in two.
Just to watch their comic wriggling
Moves the stratosphere to mirth,
And a giddy urge to giggling
Trails a titter round the earth.
When wireless humor flops and fails
And nought can raise a laugh,
Then some artful atmospheric
Sends the other half hysteric --
Gay atmospherics drop their tails
And split themselves in half.
Once again the world grows weary;
Sadly superheterodyne
Wax the wireless waves, and dreary,
Doleful frequencies repine!
Until, once more, loud laughter hails
The comic cosmic crew.
As some little stunting static,
Most absurdly acrobatic --
Till statics drop their little tails
And split themselves in two.
There is art in every antic,
So, when sitting at your set,
Rage no more with fury frantic
O'er the statics that you get.
For, far beyond your ken, great gales
Of laughter loud, with cosmic chaff
Hilarious and quite Homeric,
Sounds, as some impish atmospheric
Calls on his crowd to drop their tails
And split themselves in half.
First published in The Herald, 24 September 1934
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
