Wherever this proud nation’s standard
Unfurls its red folds to the light,
Its bearers you’ll find are the vanguard
Of freedom, and progress, and right.
Barbarian tribes, by their teaching,
Her soldiers reclaim in a trice;
Oh, there’s nothing can equal the preaching
Of Calcraft and Governor Price!
From the Ind to the banks of the Shannon,
Wherever their footsteps have trod,
With the aid of the bayonet and cannon
They’ve planted the altar of God!
And the teachers of heretic notions
Have been silent and quiet as mice,
For fear they should pay their devotions
At the shrine of grim Calcraft and Price!
Oh, lives there a slave who dare utter
A word ’gainst the laws of the realm?
Or breathes there a serf who would mutter
A thought ’gainst the “men at the helm”?
If he’s English, his faults they’ll pass over
With a sound word or two of advice;
But if Irish, he soon will discover
The logic of Calcraft and Price!
Then kneel, comrades, kneel, and thank heaven
You’re subjects of Britain’s great throne,
When, horror! you might have been given
A Republican birthright to own!
Thank God, that your blood is untainted,
You’re subjects of England—how nice!—
You’ve a chance of yet being acquainted
With Calcraft or Governor Price!
ENTITLED TO A RAISE.
SUGGESTED BY A ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY PETITION.
THIS is a brave Sub-Constable, a credit to the force,
To the landlord sleek and servile, to the peasant rude and coarse;
When Lord Knows Who was there, he could present his arms to him,
And then club Paddy Murphy with the true official vim.
And once when his contingent, in war’s circumstance and pride,
Turned out to spill his mother on the dreary mountain side,
His blood was cool—(discipline’s rule)—he made no moan, so he
Says no one should begrudge to him his rise of salaree.
This is a wise Head Constable, with little frills or lace,
But with a soul that’s panting for a much superior place,
He feels his head throb proudly with a bursting intellect,
And looks for that promotion which a genius should expect.
He has faced the jibes of Healy and such giants of the bar,
He has peeped through many a key-hole, when the door was not ajar;
He has shadowed many a priest and checked seditious childhood’s glee,
So is he not entitled to a rise of salaree?
And this, a Sub-Inspector, is a lady’s man, you know;
With braid, and rings, and eye-glass, he can make a gallant show;
Of justice he knows nothing, and of law he never dreamt,
But he can stop a meeting or he’ll fall in the attempt.
He can really waltz divinely; he can powder, he can puff,
And he’d quite an ear for music till ’twas spoiled by “Harvey Duff”;
He is silly, he is loyal,—he is all a Sub should be,
With a due appreciation of a rise of salaree.
THE POSTMAN’S WOOING.
THE POSTMAN’S PLIGHT.
JOHN THOMPSON was a postman who
Was bound in Cupid’s fetters,
And though not deeply read, ’tis true,
Was still a Man of Letters.