Poem by Henry Lawson

A Dan Yell

I WISH I’d never gone to board
    In that house where I met
The touring lady from abroad,
    Who mocks my nightmares yet.
I wish—I wish that she had saved
    Her news of what she’d seen—
That Dan O’Connor is clean shaved
    And parts his hair between.

The ladies down at Manly now—
    And widows understood—
No more deplore their marriage vow
    Or hopeless widowhood.
For Dan O’Connor is the same
    As though he’d never been,
Since Daniel shaved that shave of shame,
    And combed his hair between.

No more, Oh Bards, in Danyel tones
    He’ll voice our several fames,
And nevermore he’ll mix our bones
    As once he mixed our names.
Let Southern minstrels dree their weird
    And lay their sad harps down,
For Dan O’Connor’s shorn of beard
    And cracked across the crown.

The lobby and refreshment room
    Are shorn of half their larks,
A newer ghost now haunts the gloom
    That knew the ghost of Parkes:
The brightest joke Australia had
    Is but a hopeless grunt—
It went for ever mad and bad
    When Daniel shaved his front.

The fair Spotswhoshky weeps indeed—
    Frogsleggi and Bung Lung—
With none to greet and none to speed
    Them in their native tongue!
By Sucklar Key nor Golden Gate
    No Dan is ever seen
Since Dan O’Connor wiped his “slate”
    And notched his top between.

But—Dan O’Connor—(Lord knows best
    The thing might be a sell)—
You surely will forgive a jest
    From one who wished you well—
When we’ve forgot the face we feared
    And Time has deadened pain,
Oh! Dan O’Connor, grow your beard,
    And come to us again. 

1. Up the Country
2. Wide Spaces
3. Eureka
4. Since Then
5. The Wander-Light

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