Many a time your father gave me aid
When I was down, and now I'm down again:
You mustn't take it bad or be dismayed
Because I say, young folk should help old men
And 'tis their duty to do that: Amen!
I have no cows, no sheep, no cloak, no hat,
For those who used to give me things are dead
And my luck died with them: because of that
I won't pay you a farthing, but, instead,
I'll owe you till the dead rise from the dead.
A farthing! that's not much, but, all the same,
I haven't half a farthing, for that grand
Big idiot called Fortune rigged the game
And gave me nothing, while she filled the hand
Of every stingy devil in the land.
You weave, and I: you shirts: I weave instead
My careful verse—but you get paid at times!
The only rap I get is on my head:
But should it come again that men like rhymes
And pay for them, I'll pay you for your shirt.
ODELL
My mind is sad and weary thinking how
The griffins of the Gael went over the sea
From noble Eiré, and are fighting now
In France and Flanders and in Germany.
If they, 'mid whom I sported without dread,
Were home I would not mind what foe might do,
Or fear tax-man Odell would seize my bed
To pay the hearth-rate that is overdue.
I pray to Him who, in the haughty hour
Of Babel, threw confusion on each tongue,
That I may see our princes back in power,
And see Odell, the tax-collector, hung.