"If I had my way," said Sydney's Lord Mayor this week, "I would shoot 'em all -- all the politicians, Labor and U.A.P. The party system is bound to come to an end because it is grossly unfair."
Line 'em up at the break o' day and fill 'em full of lead,
Nor trouble to look to the Party brand, for they're all much better off dead.
And gag them tight lest speech attend the grey dawn's reverent hush
For, sheep or goat, they one and all are tarred with the same old brush.
So march 'em out in a huddled horde, the lean ones and the stout,
An' line 'em up by a cold, hard wall, and shout their livers out.
Bung 'em in a leaky boat and shove 'em out to sea,
With a copy of last year's Hansard in the pocket of each M.P.
As they go drifting down the tide I'll watch 'em from afar;
If the sharks don't eat 'em, something will, not so particular.
So where the great clams lurk agape and the octopuses creep,
Carry 'em out in a coffin ship and scuttle her where it's deep.
Take 'em out to a flying field when the day burns bright and clear,
And hurry 'em off in aeroplanes to the utmost stratosphere,
All with a nice gold pass apiece and a diver's leaden boots,
And all attracted by second-hand string to paper parachutes.
Then, as the calm, incurious sky returns each unopposed,
You may all go home to tea, good folk, for the incident is closed.
Ask them all to a banquet spread in the good old Borgian style,
And, as each drains his doctored draft, then, smile -- darn yeh! Smile!
And, as corrosive sublimate and soothing cyanide
Bring peace at last, no tongue shall wag to tell men how they died.
Then softly, softly, lock the door, and leave the dreaming there;
And we'll play a quick-step going home to show that we don't care.
First published in The Herald, 7 December 1935
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
