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C J Dennis - A Likely Lad
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Child of a myriad varied voices calling
   O’er countless leagues of space in divers tongues,
Tho’ captious critics view your ways appalling
   And fain would quiet your all too strident lungs,
Raw youth must have its fling; and ten brief summers
   Hardly suffice to make you a sage;
So, ‘spite your crooners, clowns and jazz-drunk strummers,
   You have not done so badly for your age.

Much water has flowed down many a river –-
   (The McIntyre at Yetman, let us say)
Since first you set ethereal waves a-quiver
   With that crude babbling of your natal day.
You’re growing up, my lad, and waxing wiser;
   Tho’ still the crabbed, impatient censors rage.
As entertainer and as advertiser
   You have not done so badly for your age.

And many lonely men in lonely places,
   Have hailed you as a blessing and a joy,
Condoning all your rather callow graces
   And that omniscient air that you employ,
Tho’ still much over-prone to raucous bawling.
   As boys will be, you’re learning, stage by stage,
The wiser, weightier aspects of your calling,
   You have not done so badly for your age.

Since days when first we fumbled the cat’s-whisker,
   And strained at ear-phones, yearning for a sound,
Your lighter moods have brighter grown, and brisker,
   Your interludes of wisdom more profound.
If, thro’ the next ten years, you keep on growing
   To man’s estate, and statelier arts engage,
You may please everyone; there is no knowing.
   Still, you have not done badly for your age.
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