Is it for this that the champion whose speeches
Fear not to mention the year '98
Sleeps on a plank and is robbed of his breeches,
Loses some pounds of his natural weight?
These, it would seem, are that patriot's wages—
Only to hear that the battle is o'er,
Only to blot from our history's pages
Memories of Mitchelstown, tales of Gweedore!
All the great days of the row and the ruction,
Days on the hillside and nights in the House,
When by persistent and careful obstruction
Saxons were kept from their yachts and their grouse:
All was a dream unsubstantial and airy—
Tenants are cravens, and landlords are paid:
Lone and deserted is New Tipperary,
Lodgings to let in O'Brien Arcade!
Some are for Redmond and some for M'Carthy,
All are the items that once they have been:
This is the end of the National Party,
All for Committee-Room No. 15.
A NEW DEPARTURE
SHOULD IRELAND SEND HER M.P.S TO WASHINGTON?
Oh, the Irish M.P.s they are bound for the seas,
to the country of Cleveland and Blaine,
And I hear for a fact, their portmanteaus are packed
and we never shall see them again,
And Hibernia thrills through her valleys and hills
with a passionate cry of farewell,
While the manager weeps as they're paying their bills,
in the "Westminster Palace hotel!
Though he lived all the while in the highest of style
and was fed at his country's expense,
Yet he felt (did the Celt) that in Meshech he dwelt,
and resided in Kedar its tents,
And he yearned in his heart to be playing a part
in a higher and holier sphere—
For his soul was alight with a zeal for the Right
that we cannot appreciate here.
Oh, the story is long of the villainous wrong
he endured from the Sassenach reign,
How he languished for weeks, minus freedom (and breeks),
for supporting the Plan of Campaign;
How, when statesmen arose, to diminish his woes,
and the tide of oppression to stem,
We ejected the friends who promoted his ends,
and refused to be guided by them.