Classic Poem

Air —“ I'm akin to the Callaghans .”

O Blarney Castle, my darlint!
?Sure you're nothing at all but a stone
Wrapt in ivy—a nest for all varmint,
?Since the ould Lord Clancarty is gone.
Och! 'tis you that was once strong and aincient,
?And ye kep all the Sassenachs down,
While fighting them battles that aint yet
?Forgotten by martial renown.
O Blarney Castle, &c.
Bad luck to that robber, ould Crommill!
?That plundered our beautiful fort;
We'll never forgive him, though some will—
?Saxons! such as George Knapp and his sort.
But they tell us the day 'll come, when Dannel
?Will purge the whole country, and drive
All the Sassenachs into the channel,
?Nor leave a Cromwellian alive.
O Blarney Castle, &c.
Curse the day clumsy Noll's ugly corpus ,
?Clad in copper, was seen on our plain;
When he rowled over here like a porpoise,
?In two or three hookers from Spain!
And bekase that he was a freemason
?He mounted a battering-ram,
And into her mouth, full of treason,
?Twenty pound of gunpowder he'd cram.
O Blarney Castle, &c.
So when the brave boys of Clancarty
?Looked over their battlement-wall,
They saw wicked Oliver's party
?All a feeding on powder and ball;
And that giniral that married his daughter,
?Wid a heap of grape-shot in his jaw—
That's bould Ireton, so famous for slaughter—
?And he was his brother-in-law.
O Blarney Castle, &c.
They fired off their bullets like thunder,
?That whizzed through the air like a snake;
And they made the ould castle (no wonder!)
?With all its foundations to shake.
While the Irish had nothing to shoot off
?But their bows and their arras, the sowls!
Waypons fit for the wars of old Plutarch,
?And perhaps mighty good for wild fowls,
O Blarney Castle, &c.
Och! 'twas Crommill then gave the dark token—
?For in the black art he was deep;
And tho' the eyes of the Irish stood open,
?They found themselves all fast asleep!
With his jack-boots he stepped on the water,
?And he walked clane right over the lake;
While his sodgers they all followed after,
?As dry as a duck or a drake.
O Blarney Castle, &c.
Then the gates he burnt down to a cinder,
?And the roof he demolished likewise;
O! the rafters they flamed out like tinder,
?And the buildin flared up to the skies.
And he gave the estate to the Jefiers,
?With the dairy, the cows, and the hay;
And they lived there in clover like heifers,
?As their ancestors do to this day.
O Blarney Castle, &c.