PAT'S WELCOME TO THE REAPING-MACHINE.
I'm sick of the sickle, Molly dear, and stooping so long and so low;
And it's little grief it gives me, to give the ould bother the go!
And when another harvest comes, by the Saints! I'd like to see
The money or anything else that 'ud make a Raping-Machine of me!
I've raped in Scotland and England, and I've raped in the Lothians three,
And I dar' say it's twenty year since first I crossed the Irish Sea;
I've raped yer wheat, and yer barley, and oats and beans, sez Pat:
But as for Profit—it's sorrow the raping that ever I raped of that!
So, good luck to you, Misther Mac Cormack, and Yer Reverence, Misther Bell,
And good luck to you, Misther Hussey—I wish yer Honours well;
The shearer's footing on the fields ye've fairly cut away;
But it's not been worth the standing on, bedad, this many a day.
And now the Horse takes the raping in hand, and pulls the huge machines
That go clicking and snicking across the fields of wheat, oats, barley, and beans;
Ye've got machines for sowing, and thrashing, and raping, between and betwixt,
And, troth, it's my private opinion ye'll have a machine for eating it next!
But we'll throw the sickle aside, Molly, and go and try our luck
On the banks of the far Australian strames, where the otter is billed like a duck:
For there's mate, and drink, and clothes, Molly, and riches and rank to be won.
At the Anti—what d'ye call the place, on t'other side of the sun?
And there'll be no land-agents, nor middlemen, nor Jews,
But ye'll see me stoning lumps of gould at the beggarly Kangaroos;
And there's nayther shooting of bailiffs, nor any such wicked fun,
In land that lies beneath our feet, on t'other side of the sun.
And no more masses to pay for!—good day to ye, Father O'Bladd,
The last Confession from me, faiks, and the very last penny ye've had;
It's little Yer Reverence leaves behind when ye clear away our sin,
As the prophet sez, ye purge our dross, and take precious care of the tin.
Ye've a bandage on yer wrist, Molly; that wrist with gems I'll deck,
And a string of nuggets, like millstones, I'll hang about yer neck,
And we'll live in a snug retirement where our nearest neighbour'll be
The Emperor of China, who will sometimes look in to tea!
Och! the world we're leaving, Molly, is a world of grief and care,
For even the pigs and potatoes are not the angels that once they were;
But the world we're going to, Molly, is where the giants of ould
Buried—for want of a better bank—their stocking-legs crammed with gould!
It's a world of wonders, Molly, a world without a peer;
For what it has, and what it wants, we've nothing like it here:
But of all its wondrous things, it seems the strangest thing to me
That there the labouring man's the man gets first to the top o' the tree.