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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408956" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Vote of Thanks Debate</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Other Night I got the blues and tried to smile in vain.<br>I couldn’t chuck a chuckle at the foolery of Twain;<br>When Ward and Billings failed to bring a twinkle to my eye,<br>I turned my eyes to Hansard of the fifteenth of July.<br>I laughed and roared until I thought that I was growing fat,<br>And all the boarders came to see what I was laughing at:<br>It rose the risibility of some, I grieve to state—<br>That foolish speech of Brentnall’s in the Vote of Thanks debate.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O Brentnall, of the olden school and cold sarcastic style!<br>You’ll take another WORKER now and stick it on your file;<br>“We’re very fond of poetry,”—we hope that this is quite<br>As entertaining as the lines you read the other night.<br>We know that you are honest, but ’twas foolish to confess<br>You read and file the WORKER; we expected something less.<br>We think an older member would have told the people, so—<br>“My attention was directed to a certain print” (—you know).</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The other night in Parliament you quoted something true,<br>Where truth is very seldom heard except from one or two.<br>You know that when the people rise the other side must fall,<br>And you are on the other side, and that explains it all.<br>You hate the Cause by instinct, the instinct of your class,<br>And fear the reformation that shall surely come to pass;<br>Your nest is feathered by the “laws” which you of course defend,<br>Your daily bread is buttered on the upper crust, my friend.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“We aim at broader interests,” you say, and so we do;<br>We aim at “vested interests” (the gun is loaded too).<br>We hate the wrongs we write against. We’ve felt the curse of Greed.<br>There’s little nonsense in the school where Labour earns its creed.<br>But you know little of the Cause that you are running down.<br>You would deny there’s misery and hardship in the town;<br>Yet I could take you through the hells where Poverty holds sway,<br>And show you things you’d not forget until your dying day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O Brentnall! Have you ever tramped the city streets within?<br>And felt the pavement wearing through the leather, sock, and skin;<br>And looked for work, and asked for work, and begged for work in vain,<br>Until you cared not though you ne’er might touch your tools again.<br>O Brentnall! Have you ever felt the summer sun and dirt?<br>And wore the stiffened socks for weeks, for weeks the single shirt?<br>And shunned your friends like small-pox—passing on the other side—<br>And crept away in shadows with your misery and pride?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Another solemn member rose encouraged by the cheers,<br>And talked of serving medals to our gallant volunteers,<br>And extra uniforms, that they might hand the old ones on<br>“As heirlooms in the family” when they are dead and gone.<br>But since the state of future times is very much in doubt,<br>They’d better wear their uniforms, they’d better wear them out;<br>They may some day be sorry for the front that they have shown,<br>And, e’er the nap is worn away, they mightn’t like it known.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The children of a future time shall read, with awe profound,<br>How goslings did the goose-step while a gander led ’em round.<br>O Brentnall! Speak your periods into a phonograph,<br>That generations yet to rise may lay them down and laugh.<br>I wouldn’t trust the future much; Posterity might own<br>That sense of the ridiculous that you have never shown;<br>And not the smiles of Mammon, nor the pride of place and pelf,<br>Can soothe the thought that one has made a jackass of one’s self.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">We’re low, but we would teach you if you’re willing to be taught,<br>That in the wilderness of print are tartars still uncaught;<br>And if you hunt in such a way—believe we do not jest—<br>Your chance to catch one is as good, and better than the best.<br>Be very sure about the mark before you cast the stone,<br>And, well, perhaps ’twould be as well to leave the muse alone.<br>You’ll call it egotism? Yes: but still I think that I<br>Might hit a little harder if I only liked to try.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Lawson">Henry Lawson</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408956" data-title="The Vote of Thanks Debate de Henry Lawson" data-description="The Other Night I got the blues and tried to smile in vain.
I couldn’t chuck a chuckle at the foolery of Twain;
When Ward and Billings failed to bring a twinkle to my eye,
I turned my eyes to Hansard of the fifteenth of July.
I laughed and roare..."></div>
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