Parody # 10: Australia, 2021

(with apologies to William Wordsworth)

 

Tony Abbott! thou shouldst be with us at this hour:

Australia hath need of thee: she is a swamp

Of stagnant waters; dust, and rising damp,

Our wealth for toil and sea-girt bower

Have lost strength, their inner steel doth cower –

We now are selfish, addled, multi-gendered dopes:

Please raise us up, do restore our hopes;

Let us not scare easily with each passing shower.

 

Thy words could quite embarrass, yet ring clear;

But never weasel words, never insincere

                                        Even if you were. 

Learning on the job, too late you learned

Conquest’s Second Law; Thereby were you burned

By lowly chancers, sniffing at the breeze

Of  a stupider Australia, blasé and at her ease.