Poem Themes

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