Yarrawonga
Yarrawonga by herself
Lived too long upon a shelf
She a stolid farmer's wife.
Far remote from modern strife
Drowsily beside her door
Dreamed of hectic days long o'er.
Yarrawonga dreamed in peace,
Watched her flocks and herds increase,
Drugged by wealth she sleepier grew,
Scorned the strenuous and new,
Scorned all haste and modern ways,
Yet oozed contentment all her days.
Yarrawonga now awakes,
And a sudden interest takes
In the schemes of eagr men,
Who'd restore her youth again
Who'd renew a youth half lost
And, at her contentment's cost,
Bring life-giving waters down
To rejuvenate her town.
Yarrawonga soon shall be
Resting in an inland sea
Gazing on a man-made lake
That new fruitfulness hall wake
O'er wide fields where drought has spread
Vague alarm and sudden dread.
Then shall Yarrawonga know
The dignity of years ago.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Till All the Bad Things Came Untrue
BY blacksoil plains burned grey with drought
Where desert shrubs and grasses grow,
Along the Land of Furthest Out
That only Overlanders know.
I dreamed I camped on river grass
In bends where river timber grew—
I dreamed, I dreamed the days to pass
Till all the bad things came untrue.
I dreamed that I was young again,
But was not young as I had been,
My path through life seemed fair and plain,
My sight and hearing clear and keen.
No longer bent nor lined and grey,
I met and loved and worshipped you—
I dreamed, I dreamed the days away
Till all the sad things came untrue.
I dreamed a home of freestone stood
With toned tiled roofs as roofs should be,
By cliff and fall and beach and wood
With wide verandahs to the sea.
I dreamed a hale gudeman and wife,
With sons and daughters well-to-do,
Lived there the glorious old home life
And all the mad things were untrue.
From blacksoil plains burned bare with drought
Where years are sown that never grow—
From dead grey creeks of dreams and drought,
Through black-ridged wastes of weirdest woe,
I tramped and camped with fearsome fare
Until the sea-scape came in view,
And lo! the home lay smiling there
And all the bad things were untrue.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Contentment
The lioness paused and sighed and stayed,
Her hothead cubs in tow,
For now, they stopped, the cubs obeyed
And they were lying low.
The sun still laboured in the sky,
The day went gently on...
They stared and watched the circle fly
So calmly as it shone.
How could they know its flames of fire?
Its furies far away?
Its spurting streams ascending higher?
Its passions night and day?
To them, the sun was like an eye
That witnessed good and bad...
And punished them and made them fry
And thirst till they went mad...
Yet mercy fell from Heaven, too...
Like raindrops and like tears...
And new days came with morning dew...
That melted all their fears...
And so, by faith, contentment flowed
As long as rivers lived...
To such as these their lives were owed
And life is no small gift...
The waters helped the trees stand tall,
Reach out and offer shade...
The lioness observed it all...
The way such things were made...
Yet only we can give God praise
For all that He has done...
Contentment comes... Contentment stays...
When wisdom's work is done...
The poem is based on the magnificent painting
by Stephen Gayford called 'Contentment'.
poem by Denis Martindale
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Laura Days
Dreaming to-day in a forest green
Where the great gums rake the sky,
My thoughts turn back to another scene
And to old days, long gone by;
To a land of youth, and a youth's employ,
And - to filch another's phrase -
To the men who were boys, when I was a boy,
In the long gone Laura days.
To a little town that nestles down
By the hills of Beetaloo,
Where a youth dreamed dreams of fair renown,
And a man's ambition grew,
'Twas here his earliest songs were sung
And he won his earliest praise
From men who were young when he was young
In the long gone Laura days.
Spicer, Stockdale, Ballantyne,
Marrie, Mitchell and Braund;
How many a right good pal of mine
Has gone from that sunlit land.
How many a man, how many a lad,
Whose head now slowly greys,
To a song grew glad as I grew glad
In those long gone Laura days.
Susman, Sibly and Dr Cook,
Blume and Barrington,
Oh! the lives of some are a long-closed book,
But many a tale runs on.
Hollis and Harvey, Chandler, Green
Are gone their various ways,
But I see them all in the olden scene
Of the long gone Laura days.
I see them still, I see the town
Under those scrub-clad hills,
The shops where the quiet street runs down,
Wilson, Rowland, Bills.
Taylor, Weste, Felstead too,
Cole of the kindly ways,
And many other friends I knew
In the long gone Laura days.
And the names of some come slow to mind,
But the faces greet me clear,
And I hold them all as men most kind,
As I hold the old town dear;
And so in memory to the end
That old time picture stays,
For I see each face as a faithful friend
Of the far off Laura days.
To the ladies all I lift a glass,
And toast with a right good will,
Every matron, every lass, who
Shine in memory still,
Fair would I hymn them all in rhyme
With soaring song of praise,
Friends of mine from a golden time
In the long gone Laura days.
When the evening sun slants through the gums,
By my forest-rimmed abode,
Once more the old clear picture comes,
And my mind drifts down the road;
Back to the town by Beetaloo,
Where the Rocky River strays;
Back to the old kind friends I knew
In the dear dead Laura days.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Amber Autumn (Sonnet)
To some, their youth was just sublime.
Then age crept up and over time
Their joy then faded with the years
As body changes led to fears.
Their days are spent rememb’ring when...
They long to see their youth again.
For those whose youth was filled with strife,
Their autumn years are best in life.
Now their retirement Is here,
Old age is far from what they fear.
Time now to enjoy and savour
Their rewards for past times labour.
It’s time to spread their wings and fly,
To enjoy God’s gifts ‘fore they die.
poem by Connie Marcum Wong
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Walhalla
Dark lady of the laggard dawn,
Hiding within her gully deep;
Long have night's curtains been withdrawn
Before her earliest sun-shaft's peep.
And, long before the sun sinks down,
Eve's eager shadows creep her way,
Committing to the sheltered town
Nought but a niggard glimpse of day.
And shy enough she seems these days
Who was, long since, belle of them all;
When booted diggers went their way
Around about her ramparts tall.
Full generous she was and proud,
Proffering gold by ton on ton,
Where once the toiling, teaming crowd
Made most of her ungenerous fun.
For rich she was beyond belief
Full rich enough to make man's strife;
But her youth, like her day, was brief
Too brief, but filled with glamorous life
While her wealth spread her wide renown,
While gold called to man's highest hopes
And urgent diggers crowded round
By these, her mighty timbered slopes.
Now, as calm days come and go
Peaceful her quiet hamlet sleeps
A full three thousand feet below
The far crests of her wooded steeps;
And nought, save gnarled old English trees,
Stir to recall dead day passed on,
To leave her with proud memories
Of great and golden youth long gone.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Getting Old
When you’re young you think you know it all
Then you get old and life begins to unfold.
In their youth they don’t think ahead
The future is something they do not dread.
They feel that everything in life they can control
They’re young and strong and very bold.
Aaaah! Those beautiful days bring back memories
Of how simple life used to be.
Youth had respect for the elderly
And their fellow man.
Now the elderly they try to scam.
When they are older they will see
They want respect and to live with dignity.
they are young and they don’t seem to understand
That with age you may need a helping hand.
Everything in life comes in stages
It’s like a book when you turn the pages
It gets deeper and keeps you enthralled
Until the time that you reach the end
And you’ve lost all your family and friends.
The First stage is when you are a child
And someone is taking care of you for that while.
The Second stage is when you become a teen
And you feel like a king or queen.
You feel that you can not get old
This is what you believe at this stage in your life
Because you’re not looking at the struggles and strife.
The Third stage is the adolescent years
And you feel you’re in control and lose your fears.
The final stage is when you become old and gray
And your youthful years have slipped away.
You look back and ask yourself!
where did All those years go?
Why did I waste so much time?
And the most important thing is
That I am so glad I made you mine
For with you by my side I had a life divine.
So to the youth who have not gotten to this stage
Don’t get angry, and get rid of your rage.
There is no way to turn back the time
For time just moves straight ahead
You’re getting to the point that you now dread.
WELCOME TO OLD AGE! HA-HA
poem by Louis Rams
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Ode to the Modern Work-Man
O, wretched modern work-man
The years, they pass you by
Everything you believe
Is nothing but a lie.
O, wretched modern work-man
From your neckties to your socks
You’re nothing but a slave
To pictures in a box.
O, wretched modern work-man
You live for the Public Eye
Your life is but a parody
Whose foundation is a lie.
O, wretched modern work-man
You strive, and save, and yearn
To keep up with the Kamaus
Spending more than you earn.
O, wretched modern work-man
You’re nothing but a slave
Your dreams are dead and buried
Lying in a shallow grave.
O, wretched modern work-man
You strangled your own dreams
You smothered your own happiness
Your hand stifled its screams.
O, wretched modern work-man
For the camera so aesthetic
Beneath the plastic smile
You’re pitiful and pathetic.
O, wretched modern work-man
You work yourself half to death
Chasing pounds and shillings
To swell another’s wealth.
O, wretched modern work-man
You lived your whole life as a show
Yet the only Watcher who mattered
Didn’t like what He saw.
O, wretched modern work-man
When you finally died
Your surname, and hospital bill
Were all you left behind…
Colac
A lady plump and pleasing
And generous and free,
Her life is spent in sleek content
Beside her inland sea;
And, round its pleasant waters,
Her pastures, rich and green,
Their treasures yield from many a field
To make her way serene.
A placid, laughing lady,
And prone to placid ways;
But yet, withal, she heeds the call
0f labor all her days
Of kind, congenial labor,
That holds nor fret nor stress
A farmer's wife whose busy life
Brings full, free happiness.
Men say the ocean covered
These fields in some dim age;
And seas, long fled, vast riches spread
To be the heritage
Of this plump Aphrodite,
Now risen from the wave
To thrive apace and wax in grace
On all the wealth they gave.
A happy, hearty lady,
She turns the gift to good,
And wins in toil from this rich soil
A fine fat livelihood.
Now, where seas long since thundered,
Her cars ply up and down
To evidence sound thrift and sense
In Colac's smiling town.
Her land of lakes and pastures
Could never harbor here,
In this lush place, a dour, hard race
Wed to an outlook drear.
And so she smiles and prospers,
A happy, hearty wife,
Whose ample charms, whose thriving farms
Reveal her zest in life.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Beauty's Song
What's Life still changing ev'ry hour?
Tis all the seasons in a Day!
The Smile, the Tear, the Sun, the Show'r'
Tis now December, now tis May
At morn we hail some envied Queen;
At eve she sinks some Cottage guest;
Yet if contentment gilds the scene
Contentment makes the Cottage blest.
Who more than I, this truth can feel?
I feel it yet am charm'd to find
While thus I turn the spinning-wheel
The station humbles not the mind.
Ah no! in days of youth and health
Nature will smile tho' fortune frown
Be this my song Content is wealth'
And duty ev'ry toil shall crown.
poem by Charles Lamb
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Wentertainment
Entertainment
Where I grew up the landscape was flat, the sky wide
and Christianity, demanding. The nearest village didn’t
have a cinema but sometimes a travelling preacher
came along and the meeting hall was full.
They were good the old preachers, spoke about sin,
forgiveness and the saving of the soul. Many cried
came up to the podium spoke of their many sins and
was forgiven, many came it was a good meeting.
Our neighbour was there being saved, the farmer
told me that he was always saved but it didn’t last
long, he tended to look embarrassed for a few days,
then he was back being his old sinful self.
The farmer’s wife, Alice, stirred restless in her seat,
her eyes shone she wanted to get up there and
confess her sins; I still wonder what sins that might
have been? But the farmer, Torvald, held her back.
Back at the farm Torvald had a dram his wife sat near
him, and at milking time next morning she was half
an hour late, said she hadn’t heard the alarm clock;
the farmer didn’t get up before breakfast at eight
Yes, they had warm, caressing voices the preachers
of old, and sometimes they thundered about sin till
we deliciously shivered, and when the collection box
went around we kindly gave more than old buttons.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Ancient Wisdom, Rather Cosmic
So-shu dreamed,
And having dreamed that he was a bird, a bee, and a butterfly,
He was uncertain why he should try to feel like anything else,
Hence his contentment.
poem by Ezra Pound
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Ballade Of Mature Beauty
Easy comes beauty in youth’s natural spring,
But with age its mellow dimensions grow.
Like to a bud, a full bloom, age will bring.
With grace its beauty does ebb and glow,
Its liberty allows its new functions to show.
Mature beauty is and will be admired always,
Youth’s beauty and its esteem goes to and fro,
But ageless deeper beauty has endless days.
Mature beauty has a melody to sing,
And this it releases so that you will know,
The elegance and blessing of its echo’s ring.
The evidence of a mind is part of its show,
For it opens tastefully with a view to bestow.
Ageless beauty never lacks for praise.
The beauty of life’s spring may lose its glow,
But ageless deeper beauty has endless days.
In poetry and melody its praises we bring,
For mature beauty’s many dimensions we know.
With fervid dignity I see it take to wing,
Giving the young buds an inspiring show.
May you long guide youth as they grow,
Leading them in elegance the celestial ways.
So youth will know how easy beauty may go,
But ageless deeper beauty has endless days.
Now young buds aspire to full blooms grow,
And become worthy of nature’s timeless praise.
Allow your charm in majesty and grace to glow,
And may your ageless beauty have endless days.
poem by Albert Price
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The Road to Old Man's Town
The fields of youth are filled with flowers,
The wine of youth is strong:
What need have we to count the hours?
The summer days are long.
But soon we find to our dismay
That we are drifting down
The barren slopes that fall away
Towards the foothills grim and grey
That lead to Old Man's Town.
And marching with us on the track
Full many friends we find:
We see them looking sadly back
For those who've dropped behind
But God forfend a fate so dread --
Alone to travel down
The dreary road we all must tread,
With faltering steps and whitening head,
The road to Old Man's Town!
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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The Old Do Not Die As They Dreamed
THE OLD DO NOT DIE AS THEY DREAMED
The old do not die as they dreamed
They do not simply sleep.
They do not the day before
Loved ones surrounding
Clearly speak their loving farewell
To each and everyone.
The old do not die as they dreamed
They die with their minds gone
They die unable to see and to think
They die drugged to partial painlessness
They die in indignity.
They die one big death
After many small dyings
Gone to what they were
And hoped to be.
The old do not die as they dreamed
They die as it is given to them
However sad and degrading that be.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Kohelet Again It Is Not Just The Vanity Of Vanities
It is not just the vanity of vanities
It is not just the truth of the contradictions
It is not just ‘a time for this and a time for that'
It is not just ‘Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth before the evil days grow nigh'
It is not just ‘Better a living dog than a dead lion'
It is not just ‘Enjoy your days with the wife of your youth'
It is not just the eternal truths
And the poem of the long home-
And the turning again and again of the wind and the water
And the sun and the sound-
It is not just the sheer beauty of the thing and its words
Despite an occasional archaic ugliness
It is not just the truth that cannot be gone beyond
Because this is what life is and what the grave is and what we are
It is not just too ‘that the making of many books much less the making of many poems is a weariness of the flesh-
It is that after all the years I have arrived at the time
Where the golden bowl may be broken and the voice of the grinders made low
And man return to his eternal home-
As in youth I in old age read and reread the words of the Preacher
And know myself and all of us in them-
Oh the greatest Literature is here
And part of it I repeat in my fragmented self
While the long distance of life goes beyond
In words which will be heard for the first time -
For this too is not everything
And what we do not know yet
Kohelet too does not know-
And for all of us as God permits
Who knows what will come
After the Vanity-
If it is after all Vanity
And the end of it all?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Modern Dancing
Modern, modern, modern, modern dancing
Modern dancing, modern dancing
Modern dancing, modern
I see you acting modernly with the boys and girls
Exposure breeds discovery in the modern world
The 60's hairdos 90's eyes are just flashing lights
A touch of neon hinting class for the modern night
Modern dancing, modern dancing
Modern dancing, modern dancing
Dancing
Modern dancing, modern dancing
Modern dancing, modern
Mono vision tv face and determined eyes
The clothes are perfect the rips in place just the perfect size
Familiarity breeds contempt but it doesn't show
We've heard the music times before but it still makes you go
Modern dancing, modern dancing
Modern dancing, modern dancing
Modern dancing, dancing
....variations to fade....
song performed by by Men Without Hats
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Duty Done - 1933
A duty done ... What else was there to do?
A simple matter; and as simply solved.
His straight young mind worked straightly - worked as true
As ever youth's clean mind. Here no involved
And weighty pondering of faith or fact.
Duty demanded; and he leapt to act.
He leapt and died . . . Could he but tell it now,
There would, be sure, come no heroic tale.
'What else would any man do, any how?'
This thing cried to be done. How could he fail?
The cry; the danger; Duty's sudden call;
Then - well, a bit of bad luck. That was all.
They say that youth grows cynical: too prone
To weigh advantage; thro' some modern plan
Changed from the clear-eyed youth old days had known:
More of a crafty huckster, less a man.
They say - and they are answered by one youth,
Proving again one wholesome human truth.
A duty done; and valiantly done.
Tho' death came in the doing, yet, who knows
At what wise ordering? No living one
May say how kind death be to such as those
Youth, unjustified, triumphing on his way,
Quiet hero of this world of work-a-day.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Love's Coming
She had looked for his coming as warriors come,
With the clash of arms and the bugle's call;
But he came instead with a stealthy tread,
Which she did not hear at all.
She had thought how his armor would blaze in the sun,
As he rode like a prince to claim his bride:
In the sweet dim light of the falling night
She found him at her side.
She had dreamed how the gaze of his strange, bold eye
Would wake her heart to a sudden glow:
She found in his face the familiar grace
Of a friend she used to know.
She had dreamed how his coming would stir her soul,
As the ocean is stirred by the wild storm's strife:
He brought her the balm of a heavenly calm,
And a peace which crowned her life.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Miniver Cheevy
Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.
Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of the warrior bold
Would set him dancing.
Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.
Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.
Mininver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.
Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the medieval grace
Of iron clothing.
Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.
Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.
poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
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Christmas Fancies
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago.
And etched on vacant places,
Are half forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know –
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow.
Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near,
We see, with strange emotion that is not free from fear,
That continent Elysian
Long vanished from our vision,
Youth’s lovely lost Atlantis, so mourned for and so dear,
Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near.
When gloomy gray Decembers are roused to Christmas mirth,
The dullest life remembers there once was joy on earth,
And draws from youth’s recesses
Some memory it possesses,
And, gazing through the lens of time, exaggerates its worth,
When gloomy gray December is roused to Christmas mirth.
When hanging up the holly or mistletoe, I wis
Each heart recalls some folly that lit the world with bliss.
Not all the seers and sages
With wisdom of the ages
Can give the mind such pleasure as memories of that kiss
When hanging up the holly or mistletoe, I wis.
For life was made for loving, and love alone repays,
As passing years are proving for all of Time’s sad ways.
There lies a sting in pleasure,
And fame gives shallow measure,
And wealth is but a phantom that mocks the restless days,
For life was made for loving, and only loving pays.
When Christmas bells are pelting the air with silver chimes,
And silences are melting to soft, melodious rhymes,
Let Love, the worlds beginning,
End fear and hate and sinning;
Let Love, the God Eternal, be worshipped in all climes
When Christmas bells are pelting the air with silver chimes.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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