Sprig of Shillelah.
Och, love is the soul of a neat Irishman;
He loves all that is lovely, loves all that he can;
With a sprig of shillelah, and shamrock so green.
His heart is good-humor’d, ’tis honest and sound,
No malice or hatred is there to be found;
He courts and he marries, he drinks and he fights
For love—all for love—for in that he delights,
With his sprig of shillelah, and shamrock so green.
Who has e’er had the luck to see Donnybrook fair?
An Irishman all in his glory is there,
With his sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green;
His clothes spick and span new, without e’er a speck,
A neat Barcelona tied round his neck;
He goes to his tent, and spends his half-crown,
He meets with a friend who for love knocks him down,
With his sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green.
At evening returning, as homeward he goes,
His heart, soft with whiskey, his head soft with blows,
From a sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green.
He meets with his Shelah, who, blushing a smile,
Cries, “Get you gone, Pat!” yet consents all the while.
To the priest soon they go, and nine months after that,
A fine baby cries, “How d’ye do, Father Pat?”
With your sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green?
“Bless the country!” says I, “that gave Patrick his birth,
Bless the land of the oak, and its neighboring earth,
Where grows the shillelah and shamrock so green.
May the sons of the Thames, the Tweed, and the Shannon,
Thrash the sons that would plant on their confines a cannon.
United and happy, at liberty’s shrine,
May the rose and the thistle long flourish and twine
Round a sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green.”