Analysis of A New Year's Toast

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis 1876 (Auburn) – 1938 (Melbourne)



Here's to every Aussie fellow,
Who refused to show the yellow
When depression's clammy hand
Cast its shadow o'er the land.

Here's to them who never altered
When the timid feared and faltered,
But with dogged confidence
Backed their nation's sound good sense.

Here's to them who, ne'er reviling,
Took the knock and came up smiling -
Battlers with their steadfast gaze
Fixed ahead on better days.

Aussie cobbers, strong thro' striving,
Chastened by ill-luck are thriving;
Now that better days are near
Here's a prosperous New Year!


Scheme AABB CCXX DDEE DDFF
Poetic Form Quatrain  (75%)
Metre 111001010 10111010 11101 1111001 11111010 10101010 111100 1110111 111111 10101110 11111 1011101 1011110 10111110 1110111 1010011
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 522
Words 90
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 105
Words per stanza (avg) 22
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

29 sec read
50

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis, better known as C. J. Dennis, was an Australian poet known for his humorous poems, especially "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke", published in the early 20th century. Though Dennis's work is less well known today, his 1915 publication of The Sentimental Bloke sold 65,000 copies in its first year, and by 1917 he was the most prosperous poet in Australian history. Together with Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, both of whom he had collaborated with, he is often considered among Australia's three most famous poets. While attributed to Lawson by 1911, Dennis later claimed he himself was the 'laureate of the larrikin'. When he died at the age of 61, the Prime Minister of Australia Joseph Lyons suggested he was destined to be remembered as the 'Australian Robert Burns'. more…

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