FATHER O'FLYNN

Of priests we can offer a charming variety,
Far renowned for larning and piety;
Still, I'd advance you, widout impropriety,
Father O'Flynn as the flower of them all.

Chorus: Here's a health to you, Father O'Flynn,
Slainté and slainté, and slainté agin;
Powerfullest preacher, and
Tenderest teacher, and
Kindliest creature in ould Donegal.

Don't talk of your Provost and Fellows of Trinity,
Famous for ever for Greek and Latinity,
Dad, and the divels and all at Divinity,
Father O'Flynn 'd make hares of them all.
Come, I vinture to give you my word,
Never the likes of his logic was heard.
Down from Mythology
Into Thayology,
Troth! and Conchology, if he'd the call.
Chorus: Here's a health to you, etc.

Och! Father O'Flynn, you've the wonderful way wid you,
All the ould sinners are wishful to pray wid you,
All the young childer are wild for to play wid you,
You've such a way wid you, Father avick!
Still, for all you've so gentle a soul,
Gad, you've your flock in the grandest conthroul
Checkin' the crazy ones,
Coaxin' onaisy ones,
Liftin' the lazy ones on wid the stick.
Chorus: Here's a health to you, etc.
[136]
And though quite avoidin' all foolish frivolity,
Still at all saisons of innocent jollity,
Where was the play-boy could claim an equality
At comicality, Father, wid you?
Once the Bishop looked grave at your jest,
Till this remark set him off wid the rest:
"Is it lave gaiety
All to the laity?
Cannot the clargy be Irishmen too?"
Chorus: Here's a health to you, etc.

[137]

LADY GWENNY

County by county for beauty and bounty
Go search! and this pound to a penny,
When you've one woman to show us as human
And lovely as our Lady Gwenny;
For she has the scorn for all scorners,
And she has the tear for all mourners,
Yet joying with joy,
With no crabb'd annoy
To pull down her mouth at the corners.

Up with the lark in the pasture you'll meet with her,
Songs like his own sweetly trilling,
Carrying now for some poor folk a treat with her,
Small mouths with lollypops filling:
And while, as he stands in a puzzle,
She strokes the fierce bull on his muzzle,
The calves and the lambs
Run deserting their dams
In her kind hands their noses to nuzzle.
Now with her maidens a sweet Cymric cadence
She leads, just to lighten their sewing;
Now at the farm, her food basket on arm,
She has set all the cock'rels a-crowing.
The turkey-cock strutting and strumming,
His bagpipe puts by at her humming,
And even the old gander,
The fowl-yard's commander,
He winks his sly eye at her coming.

Never to wandering minstrel or pondering
Poet her castle gate closes:
Ever her kindly cheer—ever her praise sincere
Falls like the dew on faint roses.
And when her Pennillions rhyming
[138] She mates to her triple harp's chiming,
In her green Gorsedd gown—
The half of the town
Up the fences to hear her are climbing.

Men in all fashions have pleaded their passions—
The scholar, the saint, and the sinner,
Pleaded in vain Lady Gwenny to gain,—
For only a hero shall win her:
And to share his strong work and sweet leisure
He'll have no keen chaser of pleasure,
But a loving young beauty
With a soul set on duty,
And a heart full of heaven's hid treasure.

[139]