Beauty's Blemish

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



You are as young, O lady mine,
As ere you were in olden days,
Your lips are red, your blue eyes shine,
And still you have your girlish ways.
I hate to think what years have flown
Since first I praised these things, mine own.
  

Your frocks still have that youthful cut,
Garbing a svelte form, slim and flat.
You should be spreading, darling but
Your middle-age has brought no fat.
Indeed, you sometimes seem at nights
A flapper, seen in certain lights.

My fond eyes have surveyed you, sweet,
Thro' all these years and found no fault.
Your lustrous hair, your tiny feet
Are still perfection.  Yet a halt
In my high praise wakes sudden fears:
You're growing old behind the ears!

Yet, even then, I'd not repine
If that grey matter which should fill
That pretty head, O lady mine,
Gained age, 'twere compensation still;
And I'd forgive the ravening years,
If you'd mature above the ears.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 01, 2023

49 sec read
75

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCC DEDEFF GHGHII AJAJII
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 867
Words 161
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6

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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