Dan Wasnt Thrown From His Horse

They say he was thrown and run over,
But that is sheer nonsense, of course:
I taught him to ride when a kiddy,
And Dan wasnt thrown from his horse.

The horse that Dan rode was a devil,
The kind of a brute I despise,
With nasty white eyelashes fringing
A pair of red, sinister eyes.

And a queerly-shaped spot on his forehead,
Where I put a conical ball
The day that he murdered Dan Denver,
The pluckiest rider of all.

Twas after the races were over
And Duggan (a Talbragar man)
And two of the Denvers, and Barney
Were trying a gallop with Dan.

Dans horse on a sudden got vicious,
And reared up an plunged in the race,
Then threw back his head, hitting Dan like
A sledge-hammer, full in the face.

Dan stopped and got down, stood a moment,
Then fell to the ground like a stone,
And died about ten minutes after;
But theyre liars who say he was thrown.

Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson was an Australian writer and poet. Along with Banjo Paterson, he is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's 'greatest short story writer'. His works frequently document the lives and struggles of rural and outback Australians. Lawson's own life was marked by hardship and struggles including impaired hearing and financial difficulties, which influenced his realist depictions of Australian life. Some of his notable works include 'While the Billy Boils' and 'In the Days When the World was Wide.'

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English

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Dan, The Wreck

Tall, and stout, and solid-looking,
Yet a wreck;
None would think Death's finger's hooking
Him from deck.
Cause of half the fun that's started,
`Hard-case' Dan,
Isn't like a broken-hearted,
Ruined man.

Walking-coat from tail to throat is
Frayed and greened,
Like a man whose other coat is
Being cleaned;
Gone for ever round the edging
Past repair,
Waistcoat pockets frayed with dredging
After `sprats' no longer there.

Wearing summer boots in June, or
Slippers worn and old,
Like a man whose other shoon are
Getting soled.
Pants? They're far from being recent,
But, perhaps, I'd better not,
Says they are the only decent
Pair he's got.

And his hat, I am afraid, is
Troubling him,
Past all lifting to th...

Henry Lawson

Ben Duggan

Jack Denver died on Talbragar when Christmas Eve began,
And there was sorrow round the place, for Denver was a man;
Jack Denver's wife bowed down her head, her daughter's grief was wild,
And big Ben Duggan by the bed stood sobbing like a child.
But big Ben Duggan saddled up, and galloped fast and far,
To raise the longest funeral ever seen on Talbragar.

By station home
And shearing shed
Ben Duggan cried, `Jack Denver's dead!
Roll up at Talbragar!'

He borrowed horses here and there, and rode all Christmas Eve,
And scarcely paused a moment's time the mournful news to leave;
He rode by lonely huts and farms, and when the day was done
He turned his panting horse's head and rode to Ross's Run.
No bushman in a single day had ridden half so far
Since Johnson b...

Henry Lawson

A Dan Yell

I wish Id 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 shed seen,
That Dan OConnor 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 OConnor is the same
As though hed never been,
Since Daniel shaved that shave of shame,
And combed his hair between.

No more, Oh Bards, in Danyel tones
Hell voice our several fames,
And nevermore hell mix our bones
As once he mixed our names.
Let Southern minstrels dree their weird
And lay their sad harps down,
For Dan OConnors shorn of beard
And cracked a...

Henry Lawson

Father Riley's Horse

'Twas the horse thief, Andy Regan, that was hunted like a dog
By the troopers of the upper Murray side,
They had searched in every gully, they had looked in every log,
But never sight or track of him they spied,
Till the priest at Kiley's Crossing heard a knocking very late
And a whisper "Father Riley, come across!"
So his Rev'rence in pyjamas trotted softly to the gate
And admitted Andy Regan, and a horse!

"Now, it's listen, Father Riley, to the words I've got to say,
For it's close upon my death I am tonight.
With the troopers hard behind me I've been hiding all the day
In the gullies keeping close and out of sight.
But they're watching all the ranges till there's not a bird could fly,
And I'm fairly worn to pieces with the strife,
So I'm taking no more trouble,...

Andrew Barton Paterson

In The Stable

What! you don't like him; well, maybe, we all have our fancies, of course:
Brumby to look at, you reckon? Well, no; he's a thoroughbred horse;
Sired by a son of old Panic, look at his ears and his head,
Lop-eared and Roman-nosed, ain't he?, well, that's how the Panics are bred.
Gluttonous, ugly and lazy, rough as a tipcart to ride,
Yet if you offered a sovereign apiece for the hairs on his hide
That wouldn't buy him, nor twice that; while I've a pound to the good,
This here old stager stays by me and lives like a thoroughbred should;
Hunt him away from his bedding, and sit yourself down by the wall,
Till you hear how the old fellow saved me from Gilbert, O'Meally and Hall.

* * * * * * *

Gilbert and Hall and O'Meally, back in the bushranging days,
Made themselves kings...

Andrew Barton Paterson

Jacks Last Muster

Diamantina River, Western Queensland


The first flush of grey light, the herald of daylight,
Is dimly outlining the musterers camp,
Where over the sleeping, the stealthily creeping
Breath of the morning lies chilly and damp,

As, blankets forsaking, twixt sleeping and waking,
The black-boys turn out to the managers call;
Whose order, of course, is, Be after the horses,
And take all sorts of care you unhobble them all.

Then, each with a bridle (provokingly idle)
They saunter away his commands to fulfil,
Where, cheerily chiming, the musical rhyming
From equine bell-ringers comes over the hill.

But now the dull dawning gives place to the morning,
The sun, springing up in a glorious flood
Of golden-shot fire, mounts higher and hi...

Barcroft Boake

Dan Wasnt Thrown From His Horse

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Dan Wasnt Thrown From His Horse