After Johnson's Dance by Charles Souter

After Johnson's dance --
   Don't you recollects?
I says, "Goin' 'ome?"
   You says, "I expect!"
I says, "So am I!"
   You says, "Not with me!"
I says, "An' for w'y?"
   Blowed if I could see!
      You says, "Go to France!"
      After Johnson's dance.

After Johnson's dance --
   I says, "Em, you might!"
"Might I, tho'!" says you.
   "Garn, you silly fright!"
Then I kissed you, fair!
   (How you did object!)
Towsled all your hair!
   Don't you recollect?
      Took my bloomin' chance --
      After Johnson's dance!

After Johnson's dance --
   Smacked my face, you did!
Then I caught you -- so! --
   Like you was a kid.
"Just do it again --
   Just you do," you says.
You says, "do it!" plain:
   An' of course, I does!
      Who made that advance --
      After Johnson's dance?

First published in The Bulletin, 19 August 1899;
and later in
To Many Ladies (And Others) by Charles Henry Souter, 1917;
From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, 1964; and
Along the Western Road: Bush Stories and Ballads, 1981.

Author: Charles Henry Souter (1864-1944) was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and emigrated to Australia in 1879.  He returned to Scotland to study medicine before settling in South Australia, where he lived in a number of locations around the state.  Mainly known as a "Bulletin" poet, he published four collections of his poetry during his lifetime.  He died in Adelaide in 1944.

Author reference sites: Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography

See also.