Lines written after listening on the wireless to the doleful dirge of a sad and inconsolable crooner.
I'd like to write a crooning song
Of inconsolable regrets
To music of the sweet tom-tom
With dulcet motor-horn effects.
But when I strive to weave the rhymes
Harsh dissonances fill the room,
And unmatched mouthings end the lines.
I wish that I knew how to croon.
I try, but inspiration stops,
And dull frustration thins my locks.
Oh, I want to write a crooning song,
A blooming song
Of love.
About a heart by passion torn
While evil stars rage in a storm
Above.
(Gosh! That's a rhyme! I'm getting on.
I wonder where I got it from?
If I could but go on like that
I'd moon until my tonsils crack.)
I want to serenade my sweet
In drear and doleful terms
And tell her how my life is bleak,
How all my being burns
With unrequited love. I roam
The sad earth, all undone;
But when I raise my metric moan
The rhymes will never come.
With wilful warring words I strive
Until my tortured brain cells writhe.
Oh, I want to write a moving song
A soothing song,
Tho' sad.
If only I could get it right
I even might grow lover-like
And glad.
(A rhyme again! Yes, that's another!
I could be a luckless lover;
But, alas, my song must flag
Because I've no more rhymes in stock.)
First published in The Herald, 11 May 1937
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
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