A Few Remarks On Goats, Asses And The Dead Hand Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AAAABB AACCDEFFFGGHAAAIAAAA A AAJJAAKKAAAAAAAALMAA AANNOPQQQQQQAA AAAAQIQAAQAAQQQQQQ QQQQRRMM QQAAQ| I don't mind kings and dukes and things | A |
| I don't mind wigs or maces | A |
| I don't mind crowns or robes or gowns | A |
| Or ruffles swords or laces | A |
| But what I do object to and some others more than I | B |
| Are the mad old bad old practices these baubles signify | B |
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| Good friends brother Australians and fellow voters | A |
| I think that you will agree with me that few of us are doters | A |
| Upon the customs practices fooleries and tommyrotics of the mouldy past | C |
| Nor are we apt to cast | C |
| A reverent eye behindward upon ancient precedent | D |
| Nor do we consent | E |
| To let the cold clammy and unusually muddling Dead Hand | F |
| Control the destinies of this our native land | F |
| Nay rather do we stand | F |
| Tiptoe upon the summit of the Present peering out | G |
| With faces eager and expectant eyes into the mystic Future Have you a doubt | G |
| That in Progress Business like Procedure Common sense Habit and Up to Date | H |
| Method we are all earnest believers | A |
| Is it not so | A |
| Well I don't know | A |
| So much about it 'Twere easy to prove good friends that we are in the | I |
| lump followers of Make Believe triflers with Humbug and inance self deceivers | A |
| 'Twere easy to prove that our ass like attribute indeed surpasses | A |
| That of innumerable and intensely asinine asses | A |
| And here good friends I extend to all of you my blessin' | A |
| And conclude amidst great applause the first lesson | A |
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| Secondly my brothers | A |
| Right thinking persons men in the street common sense individuals and people who call a spade a spade and others | A |
| There are full many of us who deeply deplore | J |
| The use or display of these gauds decorations baubles and trappings that belong to the unpractical superstitious and quite unfashionable days of yore | J |
| We deride for instance the ntion that the caudal appendage of a deceased horse | A |
| Perched upon the cranium of an erudite justice can add to his dignity or give to his remarks more force | A |
| In short we class as mere bunkum bosh flapdoodle and other sludge | K |
| The contention that the hind end of a horse can in any way assist the fore end of a judge | K |
| The wig the gown the staff the rod the mace | A |
| We regard as obsolete and entirely out of place | A |
| If there is one thing more than another upon which we pride ourselves it is I suppose | A |
| The fact that we scorn to wear grandpa's old fashioned clothes | A |
| The poor old gentleman's pantaloons his shirts his cravat his fob chain his frill whiskers are all anathema to us | A |
| Good friends why all this fuss | A |
| Why waste all this precious energy in denouncing the wig the gown the mace | A |
| They may be in a sense out of place | A |
| Yet why should these things shock you | L |
| Believe me they are perfectly innocu | M |
| Ous and furthermore dear friends | A |
| They serve their ends | A |
| Fo why deny these toys | A |
| To that large mentally bogged and much musinderstood class of elderly girls and boys | A |
| Whose state demands some sign or symbol | N |
| To push an idea or a principle into their heads even as the thimble | N |
| Thrusts the needle into the cloth | O |
| Then why so wrath | P |
| Heed ye good friends the parable of the beam and the mote | Q |
| Nay I crave your pardon but I have known a not particularly intelligent goat | Q |
| To view materially essential matters with a more discerning eye to possess so to speak more inate perspicacity | Q |
| Than you that is to say us Nay grasp not at the seeming audacity | Q |
| Of these few remarks for perfect perspicuity | Q |
| Attends them and I like not ambiguity | Q |
| As thinking machines the ass the goat good people are preferable at least so it appears | A |
| And here the ending of my second lesson is attended by your deafening and appreciative cheers | A |
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| My worthy friends ye who scorn to wear my poor grandpa's clothes | A |
| Get down from your pedestals O ye modern intellectual giants let each decline his scornful and uptilted nose | A |
| Deride would ye grandpa's ancient mace | A |
| Abolish it would ye and hunt it off the place | A |
| What's the matter with it It's not eating anythng is it | Q |
| And it might prove handy if a masked burglar or a Trust or a mad dog paid the | I |
| House a visit | Q |
| Gird would ye at grandpa's wig at his gown trimmed with the overcoats of late lamented rabbits | A |
| But Oh my up to date brothers what have ye to say about grandpa's and great grandpa's and great great grandpa's ridiculous customs absurd precedents inance systems and obsolete habits | A |
| What about that musty dusty mouldy mildewed hoary Tory injurious time wasting insane inane self ridiculed unwieldy and utterly unprofitable system of Party Govrnment Great great great great grandpa's cherished | Q |
| System good friends | A |
| Does it serve our modern ends | A |
| Or is it think you obsolete and absurd | Q |
| I pause for a reply What Not a word | Q |
| Do I hear you raving to have it abolished | Q |
| Yearn ye to see this thing demolished | Q |
| Go to the ass ye dullards He doesn't eat mouldy sawdust when there's good hay about | Q |
| And here kind friends I pass to 'fourthly ' flattered by your encouraging shout | Q |
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| Friends countrymen and fellow voters of this fair land | Q |
| All ye smart up to date people who scorn dear grandpa's raiment are you feeling his dead hand | Q |
| Think ye that ancient fist should interfere so in the vital affairs of to day | Q |
| Or are ye so apathetic that you don't care a tuppenny curse either way | Q |
| 'Tis cheap and easy to scoff at granpa's gauds and trappings and to the Devil send 'em | R |
| But have ye ever seriously considered such things as elected Mnistries or theInitiative and Referendum | R |
| Not you You shirk good friend you shirk | M |
| That means Work | M |
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| Friends I am done I know not what ye intend to do about it and I haven't much hope but for my part | Q |
| I say unto ye in a spirit of true brotherly love and with my hand upon my heart | Q |
| That I have enjoyed the acquaintance of asses who were never fooled by musty precedent Aye and intelligent goats | A |
| Who scorned the jam tin diet of their forebears when there was good grass about but they had no votes | A |
| And what is a goat without a vote | Q |
Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
(1)
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