| lyric | St Patrick, they say, Came up sweet Bantry Bay,
Riding crosslegged astride on the back of a whale,
which have him a bob into Ballydehob,
Saying ’Padraig, you’re welcome to green Innisfail.’
The spalpeens were scared As their saucereyes stared.
At the Satin, with his mitre, and crosier and hook;
Says one great bosthoon, ’It’s the man in the moon!
And I’ll speak to the creature,
Just out of good nature,
And srape an acquaintance by hook or by crook.
I hope he can’t eat us All up like potatoes:’
It was Patrick’s day in the morning.
‘Your Wig, white as flax,
Makes me bold for to ax
It’s who are you, what are you, from whence that you came?’
Then the Other replied,
‘I came in the last tide;
I’m a saint come to serve you, and Patrick’s my name.
With the crook in my hand
I’ll roam over this land,
And I’ll draw yee together like mountainy sheep;
I’ll card off the sins
That stick close in your skins:
’Tis ther’ll he a revel
While I bate the Devil
A beast with long horns, and black as a sweep.
Go, lie down in clover,
Till the skrimmage is over.
For its Patrick’s day in the morning.’
With a thundering polthogue,
And the toe of his brogue,
The Saint kicked the Divil beyond the Black sea.
Then he spoke to the nation -
‘My sweet congregation,
You’ve spirits remaining that’s stronger than he;
Sure ye knows what I means -
They bewilder your brains -
They’re as clear as the streamlet that flows through the green.
But stronger than Samson,
Who pulled post and lamps on
His enemies’ head,
’Till he kilt them stone-dead;
And the name of the spirit I mean is poteen,
I exhort ye, don’t stick, sirs,
To those Devil’s elixirs.
Of a Patrick’s day in the morning!’
The Saint fell asleep
And the Spalpeens all creep
For some cruiskeens of whiskey nate and unmastered
With this essence of sins
Soon they filled up their skins:
When the Saint he awoke, they were plastered.
As fuddled they lay,
Says the Saint, ""There's a way
To wean them: I’ll mawkish stuff put in each bottle:
And when they awake,
If a swig they should take,
Oh, dear! ’twill disgust them.
I think I may trust them,
They’ll vow that no more shall pass down through their throttle
Sweet sugar I’ll pour;
Squeeze a lemon so sour,
On Patrick’s day in the morning!
He went off — they awoke,
Each cruiskeen did smoke
Like the flue of a steamer — each pounced on his drink.
Their shewing grimaces,
Their making their faces,
\Vas ext-or-dinary but, what do you think?
With features awry,
In a hogshead hard by,
Each emptied his bottle, though dying with thirst;
Till one, dry as sponge,
At the tub made a plunge,
Where the sour, and the sweet,
And the whiskey did meet;
And he swigged off this physic, till ready to burst,
By the side of this mixture
Each man grew a fixture,
On St Patrick’s day in the morning!
When St Patrick came back,
‘Och!’ says he, ‘ye vile pack
Of the spawn of the Druids - ye viilanous bunch!’
But a noise, as from Babel,
Here made him unable
To hear his own voice, though he said, ‘Is the Punch’
Eon. he’d have added,
But the Spalpeens were madded,
Their howls cut short questions, remark or reply.
‘Ay, Punch,’ they roared out,
With an earth—shaking shout,
‘Is the name of this thing
That is drink for a king,
Or the mouth at a Druid, if ever he’s dry;
It would coax pipe-shank'd Death
‘ For to let one take breath
On St Patrick’s day in the morning!‘ |