He whispered to the jarvey—“You remember Murphy’s land;
Do you think that you could manage in my shoes for once to stand?
That is, could you perambulate
Around that gentleman’s estate
In a pair of boots I’ll lend you to accomplish my demand?
“You needn’t spend a week or so, you needn’t spend a day,
But just long enough to gather up some samples of the clay,
Return the muddy boots to me
Unbrushed, because I wish to be
Acquainted with the profits that that soil is fit to pay.”
That carman took instructions, but they say he took no more,
He didn’t take a dozen steps outside the tavern door,
He simply mopped the boots around
The dirtiest adjacent ground,
And returned them to the owner when an hour or so was o’er.
And that smart agriculturist a brief five minutes spent
Examining the Bluchers, and, officially content,
Proceeded the next morning to adjudicate the rent,
Remarking he was satisfied, convinced, and more than sure
That the soil of Mr. Murphy was so miserably poor,
That he must give reductions of some thirty-three per cent.
A BEWILDERED BOYCOTTER.
I’M diminted,—this is awful; so it is
My spirit’s in low water, an’ no wonder;
’Tis worse than whin the price of butter riz
The time I lost my churning through the thunder.
Mickey Flanagan has been an’ paid his rint,
An’ the Laygue that rules this part of Tipperary—
Curse of Cromwell on their bitther hearts of flint!—
Have resolved to boycott him an’ little Mary.
I wouldn’t mind the ould man,—not a jot;
I always looked upon him as a blaggard,
Since his language was so disperately hot,
Once he caught me kissin’ Mary in the haggard.
They might pass their resolutions by the score
About him, and I would niver prove contrary,
But my feelin’s are distracted, sad, an’ sore
Whin I’m called upon to boycott little Mary.
Sure, it’s mostly for her sake I go to mass,
Half a dozen miles across the fields, on Sunday;
An’ if I have to schorn her whin I pass,
Troth I’ll be a ravin’ lunatic on Monday.
Her beseechin’ eyes will follow me all day;
They’ll haunt me in the byre and in the dairy,
An’ I’ll waken in the mornin’, bald or gray,—
Black misfortune! if I boycott little Mary.
If they wanted me to bate a peeler blue,
Ram writs down half a dozen bailiffs’ throttles,
Or immigrate to far-off Timbuctoo,
An’ live on impty oyster shells an’ bottles,
I would do my best endayvors to obey;
But to tear from out my heart that winnin’ fairy
Is beyant me; so I’ll meet my friends an’ say,—
Divil sweep me if I’ll boycott little Mary!