In the Senate yesterday an Honorable Senator, after referring to the Treasurer as a hi-jacker, a four-flusher, and a Tammany boss, proceeded to tell the Assistant Minister for Works that "if he protruded his jaw into the fight he would stop one, too."
Lawblimey! I missed me vercation!
I've tumbled - too late for the bus -
That the makin' of laws is for fellers wot jaws,
Like me, with the picturesque cuss.
In me youth I'd an innercent notion
I'd flop in this law-givin' trade,
An' I've wasted me youth in 'ard yakka - ah, strooth!
When I 'ad all the gifts ready-made.
'Ere's me with a mouthful of phrases
I gathered in by-ways an' lanes;
An' I've wasted 'em all thro' ignorin' the call
To a game w'ich I thort needed brains.
Too modest, that's me. Too retirin':
To blind to me own blinkin' worth,
When today I might at the top of the tree
Pickin' plums in a Senator's berth.
An' yet - I dunno. Things is ordered,
An' blokes sorter drifts to a lurk
That is best for their bent. An' if that means content,
Well, I ain't got no quarrel with work.
An' when I git thinkin' of statecraft,
Its schemes an' its shams an' its shifts,
'Tisn't much of a game in the end. All the same,
It's a pity I've wasted me gifts!
First published in The Herald, 21 November 1931
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
