The Irishman
I.
There was a lady lived at Leith,
A lady very stylish, man,
And yet, in spite of all her teeth,
She fell in love with an Irishman,
A nasty, ugly Irishman,
A wild tremendous Irishman,
A tearing, swearing, thumping, bumping, ranting, roaring Irishman.
II.
His face was no ways beautiful,
For with small-pox 't was scarred across:
And the shoulders of the ugly dog
Were almost doubled a yard across.
O the lump of an Irishman,
The whiskey devouring Irishman--
The great he-rogue with his wonderful brogue, the fighting, rioting
Irishman.
III.
One of his eyes was bottle green,
And the other eye was out, my dear;
And the calves of his wicked-looking legs
Were more than two feet about, my dear,
O, the great big Irishman,
The rattling, battling Irishman--
The stamping, ramping, swaggering, staggering, leathering swash of an
Irishman.
IV.
He took so much of Lundy-foot,
That he used to snort and snuffle--O,
And in shape and size the fellow's neck
Was as bad as the neck of a buffalo.
O, the horrible Irishman,
The thundering, blundering Irishman--
The slashing, dashing, smashing, lashing, thrashing, hashing Irishman.
V.
His name was a terrible name, indeed,
Being Timothy Thady Mulligan;
And whenever he emptied his tumbler of punch,
He'd not rest till he fill'd it full again,
The boozing, bruising Irishman,
The 'toxicated Irishman--
The whiskey, frisky, rummy, gummy, brandy, no dandy Irishman.
VI.
This was the lad the lady loved,
Like all the girls of quality;
And he broke the skulls of the men of Leith,
Just by the way of jollity,
O, the leathering Irishman,
The barbarous, savage Irishman--
The hearts of the maids and the gentlemen's heads were bothered
I'm sure by this Irishman.
-THE END-
Blackwood's poem: The Irishman
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