Who over the waves and the sea-mist reigns.
Let Clancy quake! O’Driscoll shake!
The O’Casey hide his head in fear!
While Saxons flee across the sea—
O’Mahony’s here! O’Mahony’s here!”
The bard finished his reading with a trembling voice, and looked at his auditors earnestly through moistened eyes. The excitement had brought a dim flush of color upon his leathery cheeks where the blue-black line of close shaving ended.
“It’s to be sung to the chune of ‘The West’s Awake!’” he said at last, with diffidence.
“You did that all with your own jack-knife, eh?” remarked the The O’Mahony, nodding in approbation. “Well, sir, it’s darned good!”
“Then you’re plased with it, sir?” asked the poet.
“‘Pleased!’ Why, man, if I’d known they felt that way about it, I’d have come years ago. ‘Pleased?’ Why it’s downright po’try.”