Important People Poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

The success of the Scout movement throughout the whole world has been amply proven by the present triumphant gathering in Melbourne.
Great and important people, these
Important far beyond our ken
Who mark with adult sophistries
Their serious air of sober men,
Their fancy garb, their solemn fuss,
With code and law, their tender age.
Soon shall they count for more than us
Stale actors on an outworn stage.

They are, say we, mere children drawn
By make-believe from many lands;
Yet soon, at some swift morrow's dawn
Earth's destiny top these small hands
Must pass; and, should their creed prevail,
As well it may for all earth's good,
They shall have triumphed where we fail,
In peace and long-sought brotherhood.

Here rests a new world's shining hope,
And we, a mad world's residue,
Doomed lately in dark ways to grope,
May yet, thro' them, find dreams come true
Dreams that our blunted senses sought
To grasp in one exalted hour,
And lost - the good for which men fought
Brought into everlasting flower.

Important people? Who are we
To greet with patronising smiles
Their creed of regained chivalry
We who are cheated by crude wiles
Of greed and folly, and became
Flotsam, forlorn and tempest-tossed? . . . .
More precious far their childish game
Than wisdom in our chaos lost.