Cornell University Library 
 PR 4728.G25G7 
 
 The green above the red; more Blarney bal 
 
 3 1924 013 459 635 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013459635 
 
'YOU ARE OLD, FATlr 
 
THE 
 
 GREEN ABOVE THE RED 
 
 riDore Blarnei? BaUabs 
 
 CP 
 
 CHARLES V. gRAVES 
 
 Author of "The Blarney Ballads" 
 
 WJTH ILLUSTRATIONS BY LIKLEY SAMBOURKE 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. 
 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 

 '6 
 
 Kei^^bz^ 
 
 Butler & Tanner, 
 
 The Selwood Printimg Works, 
 
 Frome, and London. 
 
 ni> 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Some of the following verses have already seen the light in 
 various London and provincial papers, and I have to express 
 my indebtedness to the editors of the Spectator, Globe, Man- 
 chester Examiner, Yorkshire Post, Irish Times, Union, and 
 Liberal Unionist, for their kind permission to reprint them. 
 I have stated the nature of my obligation to Mr. Wilfrid 
 Blunt's prison poems on p. 47, but it is right to add to that 
 general statement the confession that the title and metre of 
 " Remember O'Brien " are borrowed from one of his pieces. 
 
 C. L. G. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The March of the Man of Hawarden . . . . i 
 
 "You ARE OLD, Father William" .... 4 
 
 William's Wain ; or, The Loss of the Vanguard .... 6 
 
 A Fancy Portrait . -9 
 
 Three Political Villanelles 12 
 
 Rides to Power ... 15 
 
 Lines by a " Blind Admirer " 16 
 
 Lines to Lord Macaulay's Biographer .... . . 18 
 
 Home Rule Aroon ! .21 
 
 The Magic Lantern ... 23 
 
 The Sassenach Samson ... 30 
 
 The Union of Hearts ... 32 
 
 The Chaunt of the Bronze Mask . ... 34 
 
 Thim's Tim's Sentiments ... . . 38 
 
 Vernon Avick ! . . . . . . ... 39 
 
 Selections from the New Billiad — 
 
 1. Billy O'Brien .... 41 
 
 2. Remember O'Brien 43 
 
 3. Dungeon Doggerel ... 47 
 
 4. The Fretful Pork-O'-Brine .53 
 
 5. A "First Class" Misdemeanant .... .56 
 
VIU 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The New Evangel 
 
 Napper Tandy and I . 
 
 A Valentine from Mother Shipton 
 
 The Boycotters 
 
 Ve Primrose Dames ! 
 
 The Root of the Matter . 
 
 The Land and the Rint . 
 
 Law and Order . 
 
 Sir William loquitur 
 
 The Pot-Hunter . 
 
 William's Mission 
 
 The De- National Anthem 
 
 58 
 61 
 68 
 70 
 72 
 73 
 76 
 77 
 81 
 82 
 
 83 
 92 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 You are Old, Father William 
 Vernon Avick ! 
 
 . Frontispiece. 
 Facing page 40 
 
THE 
 
 GREEN ABOVE THE RED 
 
 Z\)Z HDarcb of the flDan of Ibawarben. 
 
 Man of Hawarden ! march to glory, 
 O'er the corpse of Whig and Tory ; 
 Recreant Balfour, gaunt and gory. 
 
 Shudders at the shock. 
 Raise, O labyrinthine talker, 
 Raise your battle cry of " Walker ! " 
 Emulate the licensed hawker. 
 
 Or the Gallic cock. 
 
 Come, a truce to lagging, 
 
 Set your tongue a-wagging, 
 Till the foe dissolves like snow 
 
 Before your bally-ragging. 
 March along through wreck and rapine, 
 With your emerald banner flappin'; 
 Flesh your brand-new axe by Mappin ; 
 ^ Stop the Union Clock ! 
 
2 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Man of Hawarden ! upward popping, 
 Tell again the tale of Dopping, 
 Spread it wide from Wick to Wapping, 
 
 In the richest brogue. 
 Stir your stumps a little smarter, 
 Scratch the Russ and show the Tartar, 
 Hook some fresh-run English martyr — 
 
 '• Kelts " are out of vogue. 
 
 See, the tide Is flowing, 
 
 And the leek is blowing ; 
 Let the wail of Innisfail 
 
 Set Cambria's pulses glowing. 
 Prove, by clearest demonstration, 
 Taffy's trifling depredation 
 Was the shameless fabrication 
 
 Of some Saxon rogue. 
 
 Man of Hawarden ! see. Saint George is 
 Powerless to control the orgies 
 Of the Dragon, who disgorges 
 
 Floods of greenest gall. 
 What are " thousands " against " millions," * 
 Hartingtons against Trevelyans, 
 Madrigals to Welsh Penillions, 
 
 * Mr. Caine said there were three hundred thousand Liberal Unionists; 
 but he (Mr. H. Gladstone) thought a liberal allowance would be one-half of 
 that, whilst their own ranks were numbered by millions, and how could the 
 millions be said to desert the thousands ?— Speech of Mr. Herbert Gladstone 
 at Chester. Standard, October 30, 188S. 
 
THE MARCH- OF THE MAN OF HAWARDEN. 
 
 Barnabas to Paul ? 
 
 Rend the realm asunder, 
 
 Glut the poor with plunder, 
 Hurl the rich into the ditch 
 
 And " keep " their " proud souls under" : 
 Cast aside all moderation, 
 And achieve, with exultation, 
 England's utter uncreation — 
 
 England's final fall ! 
 
THE GREEN ABOVE TBE RED. 
 
 "l^ou are olb, fatber Millianu" 
 
 "You are old, Father William," began the boy, 
 " Yet I'm sure, on consid'ring the question, 
 You can swallow things whole that would simply destroy 
 Ev'n a boa-constrictor's digestion." 
 
 " In the days of my youth," sighed the sage from his book- 
 " Let the cause your attention engage — 
 I gave thirty-three chews to each mouthful I took. 
 To prepare for the pleasures of age." 
 
 " You are old. Father William," resumed the youth, 
 " And yet I observe with surprise, 
 That, although you can never stop opening your mouth. 
 You keep constantly closing your eyes." 
 
 " The answer is simpler than you'd have supposed : — - 
 When a quite inexperienced man. 
 With my weather-eye open, my weather-mouth closed, 
 I pursued just the opposite plan. 
 
 " But a prophet whose aquiline vision absorbs 
 The future through ages unsung 
 May be freely forgiven for veiling his orbs 
 And setting the spurs to his tongue." 
 
" YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM. 5 
 
 " You are old, Father William," persisted the boy, 
 " Yet you do so delight in a ' dopper,' 
 That, till threatened by law, you refuse to withdraw : — 
 At your age is that decent or proper ? " 
 
 Quoth the sage, "In my youth, to the dictates of truth 
 
 I adhered with such hearty conviction. 
 That I surely may pay, now I'm aged and grey, 
 
 An occasional tribute to fiction." 
 
 " You are old. Father William " " Dry up," said the sage, 
 
 " And be off out of that in a jiffy ; 
 Cut your Brummagem stick, or I'll catch you a kick 
 That'll hoist you from here to the Liffey." 
 
THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Mmiam'0 Main; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE LOSS OF THE VAN-GUARD. 
 
 Vanitas vanitatum. — Ecdesiastes. 
 Mystica vannus lacchi. — Virg. 
 
 [Until the autumn of 1888 Mr. Patrick Murray was engaged in driving a 
 Home Rule Union Van about the country, and was described in placards 
 and advertisements as having " left the Royal Irish Constabulary rather than 
 take part in evictions." A question put in the House of Commons elicited 
 the information that, while nobody answering to that name had resigned, 
 three men, all called Patrick Murray, had been discharged from the force in 
 the last three years. Further inquiries identified the Home Rule Van-driver 
 with the individual who was discharged from the force with a gratuity, in 
 August, 1887, as unfit for further service owing to an affection of the brain. 
 In spite of this, however, his employers have dispensed with his services.] 
 
 I WHO drive this Parnellite four-wheeler, 
 
 Jarvey of this green Gladstonian fly, 
 I was once a base, a blood-stained peeler, 
 
 Of the deepest, darkest, deadliest dye ; 
 Once I was a mercenary minion. 
 
 Revelling in the sight of needless pain ; 
 Now there breathes not any Abyssinian 
 
 More undeviatingly humane. 
 Yes, I am a peaceful missionary 
 
 " Moving on " from Beersheba to Dan, 
 And no matter how our fortunes vary, 
 
 I at least am always in the Van. 
 
WILLIAM'S WAIN. 
 
 Should you ask what cleansed my soul Satanic, 
 What induced this startling chano-e of front, — 
 
 'Twas a wave of influence galvanic 
 
 IHowing from the frame of Wilfrid Blunt ; 
 
 For at Woodford, as he held his mission, 
 I was one of that benighted horde 
 
 Who — -I own it with profound contrition- 
 Hustled the apostle overboard. 
 
 But the martyr, mangled and disjointed. 
 Showed, as only Orientals can. 
 
 Marvellous forbearance, and appointed 
 Me as driver of the Home Rule Van. 
 
 Once I twirled the terrifying truncheon. 
 
 Once I plied the barbarous battering-ram ; 
 Now I'm asked to Dollis Hill to luncheon 
 
 And discuss the genesis of jam. 
 Once I was a loyal salamander, 
 
 Facing showers of scalding stirabout ; 
 Now I wage undying war on slander. 
 
 And demolish " Philosophic Doubt." 
 Once our patriots' lips I placed the gag on, 
 
 Once I did my best to wreck the Plan ; 
 Now I navigate the Home Rule wagon, 
 
 Now I ride triumphant in the Van. 
 
 Balfour, like a truculent garroter. 
 
 In the Times my sanity derides ; 
 Oh, he'll find the situation hotter 
 
 When I've raised my corps of Murr'ay s Guides ! 
 
THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Then along the Severn and the H umber, 
 
 Then along the Isis and the Trent, 
 We will neither slacken rein nor slumber. 
 
 Ventilating Erin's discontent. 
 Yes, wherever local irritation 
 
 Rears itself against the tyrant's ban. 
 Counselling conspicuous moderation. 
 
 Each of us will skirmish in his Van. 
 
 IK *i* Tf! ^ vjv 
 
 What ! you think " on due consideration " 
 
 That you won't " require me any more " } 
 Tare an' ouns ! this bangs the whole creation ; 
 
 Sure I never heard the likes before ! 
 O ye blathering Separatist varmints, 
 
 May disaster dog your crazy track ; 
 Give me my constabulary garments. 
 
 Give me belt and give me carbine back ! 
 May the devil drive your dirty party 
 
 Horse and foot to China or Japan ! 
 What's the use of Parnell and M'Carthy, 
 
 When there's no one left to guide the Van ? 
 
A FANCY PORTRAIT. 
 
 H ifanc^ poitrait. 
 
 Let me sing to you of Cony — 
 
 Courteous Conybeare ; 
 He's no fashionable " Johnny," 
 
 Never, never fear ; 
 Nor a Piccadilly dandy ; 
 But he's loved by dear old Sandy 
 
 With a love sincere ; 
 And he's dear to gallant Taffy — 
 Were I gifted as Mahaffy, 
 
 I could tell how dear ; 
 Gentle Cony — genial Cony — 
 
 Gracious Conybeare ! 
 
 He was trained at Oxford, Cony — 
 
 Clever Conybeare, 
 Where he utterly astoni — 
 
 Stonished his year ; 
 Not by loud nocturnal screeches, 
 Nor by variegated breeches, 
 But by trenchant Union speeches, 
 
 Drawing many a tear 
 From the eyes of dons and doctors, 
 Deans, pro-consuls, and pro-proctors. 
 
 Oh, a bright career 
 
THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 All predicted for their Cony — 
 Clever Conybeare ! 
 
 Long and loyally he studied 
 
 With a zeal severe, 
 Till his genius bloomed and budded, — 
 
 Patient Conybeare ! 
 He was not an office-seeker, 
 But he yearned to beard the Speaker, 
 
 Yearned to hurl his spear 
 'Mid the Unionist debaters, 
 Yearned to rout the Tory praters, 
 
 Crush the fopling peer : 
 Balmy, bouncing, Tory-trouncing, 
 
 Flouncing Conybeare ! 
 
 Then the Scions of Trelawny, 
 
 Void of all veneer, 
 Cornish giants, grim and brawny. 
 
 Called for Conybeare ; 
 And he left the home of syntax 
 P'or the land of tin and tin-tacks. 
 
 Quite a different sphere ; 
 And the miners, in their millions. 
 From their underground pavilions, 
 Some on foot and more on pillions. 
 Come to meet him, with postillions 
 
 And the grenadier — 
 No, a German band for Cony — 
 
 Happy Conybeare ! 
 
A FANCY PORTRAIT. 
 
 Had I but the brush of Sambourne, 
 
 Or of Edward Lear, 
 I would limn the pride of Camborne, 
 
 Lovely Gonybeare ; 
 Vieing, in his grace of manner. 
 With angelic Doctor Tanner, 
 
 Noble cavalier ! 
 Parrying Balfour's poisoned rapier 
 With the sang-froid of a Napier, 
 
 Or a Vere de Vere : 
 Seldom vicious, dear, delicious. 
 
 Bonny Conybeare ! 
 
THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Ubree political IDillanellee. 
 
 I.— YILLANELLE OF THE OLD MAN OF 
 
 THE SEA. 
 
 I'm the Grandest Old Man of the Sea 
 
 That Bull ever took on his back. 
 My bonnet's the home of the bee. 
 
 I'm quite at the top of the tree : 
 
 For my age I'm remarkably sprack. 
 I'm the Grandest Old Man of the Sea. 
 
 I dwell on the banks of the Dee : 
 
 I'm partial to ' O' ' and to ' Mac' 
 My bonnet's the home of the bee. 
 
 Poor Paddy's devoted to mc, 
 
 Pm glad he gave Sackville the sack. 
 Pm the Grandest Old Man of the Sea. 
 
 Pm fond of my five o'clock tea : 
 
 I'm fonder of Green than of Black. 
 My bonnet's the home of the bee. 
 
 If I live to a hundred and three, 
 
 I shall haul down the Union Jack, 
 Pm the Grandest Old Man of the Sea. 
 My bonnet's the home of the bee. 
 
THREE POLl'IICAL VILLANELLES. 13 
 
 II.— VILLANELLE OF THE OLD PARLIA- 
 MENTARY HAND. 
 
 I'm an Old Parliamentary Hand ; 
 
 I've swallowed the Plan of Campaign, 
 But I don't like the lie of the land. 
 
 I feel both for Tanner and Tanned ; 
 
 I know that the Celt is humane. 
 I'm an Old Parliamentary Hand. 
 
 I've plotted and striven and planned 
 
 To unravel this tangled skein ; 
 But I don't like the lie of the land. 
 
 Bereft of old friends I stand : 
 
 The Tories compare me to Cain. 
 I'm an Old Parliamentary Hand. 
 
 Am I building upon the sand ? 
 
 I can count on O'Brien and Blaine, 
 But I don't like the lie of the land. 
 
 I am Old ; am I really Grand ? 
 
 Is my castle in Wales or Spain ? 
 I'm an Old Parliamentary Hand, 
 But I don't like the lie of the land. 
 
14 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 III.— VILLANELLE OF THE LOYAL JACKASS 
 
 I'm sick of Harcourt's sounding brass, 
 
 Of Morley's tinkling symbolism. 
 Why am I such a loyal ass ? 
 
 I wish they'd put me out to grass 
 
 Far from this everlasting schism. 
 I'm sick of Harcourt's sounding brass. 
 
 My features in the looking-glass 
 
 Seem sicklied o'er with pessimism. 
 Why am I such a loyal ass ? 
 
 I flounder in the rank morass 
 
 Of Separatist syllogism. 
 I'm sick of Harcourt's sounding brass. 
 
 The Parnellites are not first-class : 
 
 Their creed's the rankest Communism. 
 Why am I such a loyal ass ? 
 
 I cannot worship with the mass : 
 
 I can't endure this fetishism. 
 I'm sick of Harcourt's sounding brass. 
 Why am I such a loyal ass ? 
 Echo : Ass ! 
 
RIDES TO POWER. 
 
 IRibes to power. 
 
 A Rondeau. 
 
 [" He even alluded to ' three acres and a cow,' regarding which he should 
 have been silent, for he rose to power upon that unfortunate animal, and 
 then turned her out to starve — nothing more being heard of the cow while 
 his Administration continued." — Mr. Goschen at West Bromwich, Nov. 14, 
 1888.] 
 
 To ride to power, ten years ago. 
 On my Bulgarian buffalo, 
 
 At Dizzy and the Golden Horn 
 
 I tilted, one election morn, 
 And routed Turk and Tory foe. 
 Experiencing an overthrow, 
 I changed my mount, and then, you know. 
 
 On Collings' cow I thought no scorn 
 To ride to power. 
 But as I crossed St. Stephen's flow, 
 I swapped her, spite of Lincoln's mot. 
 
 For Erin's Bull, and we are sworn. 
 
 Upon that green-eyed monster borne. 
 We — Gladstone, Parnell, Ford, and Co., — 
 To ride to power. 
 
i6 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Xinc0 b^ a "Blint) a&mivcr." 
 
 [Ft was stated in a well-known Russophil evening paper — the Pellinellikoff 
 Gazetzky — on the occasion of Mr. Gladstone's visit to Birmingham in Novem- 
 ber, iS88, that applications for tickets had been received not only from the 
 blind, but the deaf and the dumb. And a bona fide letter from a " Blind 
 Admirer " of Mr. Gladstone's was quoted in their columns.] 
 
 Great leader, whose aquiline optic * 
 Pate wills that I ne'er may behold. 
 
 Quit the study of Erse and of Coptic, 
 Leave Olympus awhile in the cold : 
 
 Let thy voice, like the call of a clarion, 
 Bring balm to the deaf and the dumb ; 
 
 Swoop down on the Unionist carrion, 
 And scatter the scum. 
 
 We are sick of the sermons of Otto, 
 
 Of Harcourt's elaborate t jeers ; 
 Thou only, rhetorical Giotto, 
 
 Canst argue in absolute spheres. 
 
 * Aquiline optic: Eagle eye (Lat. aquila). Others wrongly derive from 
 Aquilo, the blusterous wind, and quote the well-known phrase " Gladstonian 
 windbag.'' The following quotation is, however, conclusive against this : — 
 " I want to have his eagle eye meet mine." — Pel I niellikoff Gazetzky. 
 
 t Elaborate: Vide "labor improbus " (Tiij.). 
 
LINES BY A "BLIND ADMIRER." 17 
 
 Too long with Elizabeth's era, 
 
 With religious romance hast thou toyed ; 
 Come forth, O consummate Chimaera,* 
 And boom in the void ! 
 
 Our love of the truth, pray remember, 
 
 Is earnest, but O is it right 
 To drag her, in chilly November, 
 
 Unclothed to the merciless light ? 
 So be true to thy training ; be subtle : 
 
 Let no one thy meaning divine : 
 Yea, put forth the craft of the cuttle. 
 And blacken the brine. 
 
 We are weary and faint with pursuing 
 
 Humanity's uniform track ; 
 Great Anarch ! be up and undoing. 
 
 Set the dial a century back. 
 Hark ! in tune to the tocsin of treason 
 
 Our infants in unison lisp, 
 " Come down and redeem us from reason. 
 Great Will o' the Wisp ! " 
 
 * Consummate Chimara : Cf. the parody upon scholastic disputations by 
 Erasmus. Qumritur " an Chimcera, bombinans in vacuo, possit devorare 
 secundas intentiones.'' 
 
THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Xinea to Xor& flDacaula^'s Biograpber. 
 
 [Sir George Trevelyan, in a letter recently addressed to a correspondent, 
 who had written to him for some information about Macaulay, spoke of the 
 ' rush of regret" that had come over him in being thus suddenly recalled 
 from pontics to hterature.] 
 
 O INCOMPREHENSIBLE OttO, 
 
 Once famed for your whimsical grace, 
 Can it be that your family motto * 
 
 Is proving its truth in your case ? 
 Are the terms of surrender too galling, 
 
 Are the fetters beginning to fret, 
 That you plaintively speak of your falling 
 A prey to regret ? 
 
 Yes, a " rush of regret " has assailed you, 
 
 A dissatisfaction divine ; 
 Infatuate Otto ! what ailed you 
 
 Your earlier role to resign ? 
 What ailed you, infatuate Otto, 
 
 To stray from your studious retreat ? — 
 Like a sensitive plant from a grotto, 
 Cast into the street. 
 
 * Time trieth troth. 
 
LINES TO LOUD MACAULATS BIOGRAPHER. 19 
 
 Oh, why, in biography peerless. 
 
 Did you barter your lettered repose 
 For a life that is chequered and cheerless — 
 
 A life of unlimited prose ? 
 For it can't have been craving for shekels, 
 
 And it can't have been family pride, 
 That drove you, the gentlest of Jekylls, 
 To emulate Hyde ! 
 
 What caused you, O trimmest of trimmers, 
 To swerve and to sway in your gait ? — 
 
 Was it reading political primers 
 That addled your eminent pate ? 
 
 Oh, to think of your finding a haven 
 Beneath the Gargantuan gamp ! — 
 
 Like Samson, insidiously shaven 
 In the Philistine camp. 
 
 With your Fox you made excellent running, 
 Now a goose-chase is wasting your breath 
 
 Oh, pursue with your earlier cunning. 
 And you're sure to be in at the death ! 
 
 Leave the limbo of dumps and of dudgeon, 
 Quit the mighty Milesian stew. 
 
 Cast aside your political bludgeon, 
 Wield the rapier anew. 
 
THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Like a prodigal, sick of the diet 
 
 Of Paddy's perpetual stye, 
 Too husky to rant or to riot, 
 
 For liberal leisure you sigh. 
 Oh, come back to the calm of the cloister, 
 
 Give your erudite energies scope ; 
 Leave the workaday world — 'tis an oyster 
 You never will ope. 
 
HOME RULE AROONI 
 
 Ibome IRule Sroon! 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE LAY OF THE DISLOYAL JACKASS. 
 {To the Air of '' Skule Aroon.") 
 
 I WOULD I were in yonder House ! 
 'Tis there I sit, mute as a mouse, 
 U ntil the season of the grouse. 
 
 Chorus. — Home Rule, Rule, Aroon ! 
 
 I guessed the way the cat would jump ; 
 I parted from the Tory " Rump," 
 And went round Ireland on the stump. 
 Chorus. — Home Rule, Rule, Aroon V 
 
 I turned my coat from blue to green ; 
 I spoke unkindly of the Queen ; 
 I witnessed an eviction scene. 
 
 Chorus. — Home Rule, Rule, Aroon ! 
 
 I stood again, but, cursed luck ! 
 Our glorious leader ran amuck, 
 And in the Irish gutter stuck. 
 
 Chorus. — Home Rule, Rule, Aroon ! 
 
THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 I wish, I wish, I wish in vain, 
 
 I wish I had my seat again ; 
 
 I think I must have been insane. 
 
 Chorus. — Home Rule, Rule, Aroon ! 
 
 Oh, Fire and Fury seize the " Plan " : 
 Confusion take that Green Old Man : — 
 Why did I leave the frying-pan ? 
 
 Chorus. — Home Rule, Rule, Aroon ! 
 
THE MAGIC LANTERN. 23 
 
 ITbe fiDaoic Xantem. 
 
 \Scene.—K lecture hall in the Black Country, profusely decorated with 
 bunting and Dis-Union Jacks emblazoned with crownless harps, Manx cats, 
 and Welsh rabbits. In the reserved seats are to be noticed Sir U. Cole- 
 Scuttleworth, and other local magnates. The body of the hall is crowded 
 with a packed and enthusiastic audience. On the platform at the back a 
 large white sheet, in front to the right a table, to the left an upright Collard 
 pianoforte. Enter the Lecturer. Prolonged enthusiasm. Cheers, tears, and 
 laughter. Also Hymns, Ancient and Modern, — especially modern. Presenta- 
 tion, by members of the Gladstone-Tanner Branch of the Gaelic Athletic 
 Association, of a pair of bog-oak dumb-bells, and a pat of Irish butter. 
 Serenade by the ham-strung band of the Fir-Bolgic Invincibles.J 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, your cheers, 
 Ringing on my grateful ears, 
 Prove that though I've lost the trust 
 Of the hardened Upper Crust, 
 I have struck the softest parts 
 Of the people's pudding hearts. 
 
 Ne'er can I the exchange regret, 
 Ne'er discharge the heavy debt 
 That hermetically seals 
 William to your chariot wheels. 
 Yet, perchance, he may be able. 
 Ere he leaves this lecture table. 
 With his lantern just a little 
 From that heavy debt to whittle. 
 
24 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Now observe this instrument : 
 Half a life-time I have spent, 
 In the workshop and the mine, 
 Puzzling out its deep design ; 
 Till at last the conscious spark 
 Clove the circumambient dark, 
 Signalling my sanguine soul 
 To its great and glorious goal. 
 Let me now to every eye 
 How it acts exemplify. 
 Ilka lad and lassie kens 
 That an ordinary lens 
 Can the vulgar fancy cheat 
 By reflections on a sheet ; 
 But I claim for my machine, 
 As I'll show upon that screen, 
 That no lantern ever lit 
 Can at all compare with it : 
 For, as presently I'll show, 
 It will make an object grow. 
 Till its just and true proportions 
 End in most grotesque contortions. 
 Thus, a mole-hill on \wy slide 
 To a mountain's magnified, 
 Towering and towering still 
 Over an undoubted hill. 
 If, upon the other hand, 
 Diminution )'ou demand, 
 At a glance Mount Everest 
 
THE MAGIC LANTERN. 25 
 
 To a mole-hill is compressed. 
 Then again to garish glints 
 It can quicken neutral tints, 
 Or the flush of summer sober 
 To the flickerings of October. 
 Nay, from nothing this machine 
 Can create what should have been. 
 And present it with such force, 
 It becomes a thing of course. 
 
 I have various other views, 
 
 But to-night my Irish stews, — 
 
 Since I gather that you wish 
 
 For that favourite standing dish, — 
 
 On the canvas I propose 
 
 In due order to disclose. 
 
 First of all my specimens, 
 Lo ! I throw upon the lens 
 One of Michael Davitt's " pens," 
 On a piece of cartridge paper : 
 Well ! I light it with this taper. 
 When, by means of this extension 
 Exercise you heard me mention — 
 See, hey presto ! here's Mat Harris 
 And his sporting friends from Paris, 
 With their Irish country cousins. 
 Shooting landlords down by dozens ! 
 
2 6 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 That is Matthew — those his cartridges ; 
 This his bag of human " partridges." 
 
 After that abrupt crescendo. 
 Here's a choice diminuendo ! 
 For I throw upon the screen 
 This Jack-ass steeped in paraffin, 
 Then by miscreants set a-flame, 
 As the credulous Tories claim. 
 Sprinkle some " Insanitas " 
 On that agonizing ass, 
 And the fiendish conflagration 
 Underneath the preparation 
 Soon begins to peak and pine 
 In a galloping decline, 
 Till quite " venially," my friends. 
 Look ! it "deviates" and ends 
 In the donkey, one Mick Davin 
 Fired for ring-bone or for spavin. 
 
 Now two contrasts let me choose 
 Out of my dissolving views. 
 Here's a cottage, at first sight 
 Seeming cosy, clean, and bright, 
 Standing in a homestead fine, 
 Cropped by pasturing sheep and kine. 
 Mark its inmates — see, they sit ; 
 Is there any doubt of it ? — 
 Chubby children, parents hearty, 
 
THE MAGIC LANTERN. 27 
 
 Quite a model household party, 
 
 At their meal of beans and bacon ; — 
 
 You are utterly mistaken. 
 
 Look, my friends, a little nearer. 
 
 While I make that picture clearer. 
 
 Can it brook the influence bright 
 
 Of my magnifying light ? 
 
 Take the cottage : after all, 
 
 What we thought its stone-set wall. 
 
 Tidy tiles and glittering glass. 
 
 Into gaunt mud-misery pass. 
 
 Here's no chimney but the door, 
 
 Here's no table but the floor, 
 
 Where poor starving wretches squat 
 
 Round the seed-potato pot. 
 
 Crop and pasture, flock and herd. 
 
 Melt in mockery absurd 
 
 To one patch of sorry oats, 
 
 And two nibbling nanny-goats. 
 
 The difterence I could always see 
 'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee ; 
 But to-night I'll show you some 
 'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledum. 
 
 Here's Tweedledum, with smiling malice, 
 Passing round the poisoned chalice 
 That consigns with purpose fell 
 All the Sassenach spawn to Hell. 
 
28 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Hear him, now that game is up, 
 Sobbing o'er the loving cup, 
 " Saxon, we too long have striven. 
 Let's forgive and be forgiven." 
 
 Here's Tiny Tim, in wig and gown, 
 With a case against the Crown, 
 Arguing Roche's jurisdiction 
 Cannot set the least restriction 
 On such epithets as " sneak," 
 Hurled against a hireling Beak. 
 Study Tim's forensic phiz. 
 And you'll find his dander's riz. 
 By two lengthy limbs of law, — 
 Since that sneak he won't withdraw, — 
 Timothy is now withdrawn, 
 Like an apprehensive prawn 
 Parrying with frantic feelers 
 All the onslaughts of its peelers ! 
 
 Last, the O'Brien Blatherum, 
 Biting his tremendous thumb 
 At the lily-livered Thugs 
 Guarding Judas's stone-jugs : 
 Now engaged, at desperate odds. 
 For his breeches and his jjods, 
 Wildly waging, one to four. 
 Furious battle on the floor ; 
 Till at last, o'erpowered and peeled. 
 
THE MAGIC LANTERN. 29 
 
 Panting, he his pants must yield ; 
 Yet this prophecy puffs and blows 
 In the faces of his foes : 
 " Fiends, I solemnly assert, 
 Sitting shivering in my shirt. 
 Since tit for tat our history teaches. 
 Be it so ! for breeches, breaches ; 
 From our Yankee Irrepressibles 
 Pitiless retaliations ; 
 For my shattered ' inexpressibles ' 
 Clerkenwell continuations ; 
 Till the Union Jack goes down 
 Before the Harp without the Crown, 
 And Erin through the welkin wags 
 Emblazoned with O'Brien's bags ! " 
 
 Curtain. 
 
30 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 VciZ Saeecnacb Samson. 
 
 ( To the Air of " The Protestant Gun.") 
 
 [Suggested by Sir Henry James's comparison of a well-known Liberal 
 politician to Samson with a wig on.] 
 
 There are threasures in Ulster as good as our own, 
 
 For we're sucking the Orange as dry as a bone, 
 
 And this Sassenach Samson, — more power to his jaw ! — 
 
 Shouts " Hurroo for ould Ireland ! " and " Down wid the 
 
 law ! " 
 Yet four short years ago, ere we cropped his love-locks, 
 Man alive ! sure he dealt us the divil's hard knocks : 
 But we've hauled down his colours and altered his rig. 
 And giv'n poor ould Samson a wonderful wig. 
 
 'Tis grand to see Blunt standing up for the " Plan," 
 Wid himself in the rear and his wife in the van : 
 There's pleasure in capping a colleen wid pitch, 
 Or in stripping a bailiff of ivery stitch : 
 'Tis sweet to give grabbers a taste of cold lead, 
 To boycott them living and boycott them dead : 
 But for all these divarsions I'd not give a fig. 
 After seeing ould Samson dressed out in a wig. 
 
 I've laughed till I felt I was ready to split 
 
 At Gladstone bla'gudrding the measures of Pitt ; 
 
THE SASSENACH SAMSON. 31 
 
 Or at Sullivan swearing he's fit for to burst 
 Wid the love of a nation he formerly cursed ; 
 Or at Dillon the dauntless, who lately was seen 
 Dancing Kitchin quadrilles wid a Protestant Dean : 
 But of all these performances, little or big, 
 None aiquals ould Samson dressed out in his wig. 
 
32 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Voz "^nlon of Ibearts. 
 
 What boots it, dissentient battalions, 
 
 Of your birth and your breeding to brag, — 
 To label us ragged rapscallions, 
 
 Needy knights of the green carpet bag ? 
 Though fools by fine feathers be flattered, 
 
 Snobs snared by Society's arts, 
 The Union of Caste shall be shattered 
 
 By the Union of Hearts. 
 
 Girt around by your Stars and your Garters, 
 
 Pert plank-bedding props of the Pale, 
 Ye rudely ride over our charters, 
 
 Ye lock up our leaders in gaol. 
 Mad Marquis, your vessel, dismasted. 
 
 Drifts to doom without compass or charts. 
 For the Union of Rank shall be blasted 
 
 By the Union of Hearts. 
 
 Ye have millionaires rolling in riches. 
 
 Ye count on the clan of the Guelph, 
 Whilst our champions are robbed of their breeches 
 
 And poorly provided with pelf : 
 Yet muster the minions of Mammon, 
 
 Make the most of the monarchs of marts, 
 For the Union of Gold is as gammon 
 
 To the Union of Hearts. 
 
THE UNION OF HEARTS. 33 
 
 Ye are sharper than Thackeray's Becky, 
 
 We do not disparage your wit ; 
 We envy you Dicey and Lecky, 
 
 And Joseph resigned to his Pitt : 
 Your learning is deep and undoubted, 
 
 Ye are men of remarkable parts. 
 But the Union of Heads shall be routed 
 
 By the Union of Hearts. 
 
 Then avaunt, ye Coercionist croakers. 
 
 For staunch and unshaken remains 
 The Alliance of Porridge and Pokers, 
 
 Against the assemblage of Brains : 
 Our flag no surrender shall sully, 
 
 No shield stay our death-dealing darts, 
 For our war-cries are " Tanner and TuUy ! 
 
 And " The Union of Hearts ! " 
 
 D 
 
34 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 ^bc (Tbaunt of tbe J5ron3e fiDasf?. 
 
 [Shortly before Mr. Gladstone's departure for Italy in December, 1888, the 
 parishioners of a well-known London clergyman presented him with a bronze 
 mask of Mr. Gladstone.] 
 
 Forgive, kind shade of Mackworth Fraed, 
 
 One, who on wax-bound pinion 
 Essays a flight where you by right 
 
 Hold undisturbed dominion. 
 
 I THINK that at this festive time, 
 
 — This Saturnalian season, — 
 More folk will hearken to my rhyme 
 
 Than to my foeman's reason : 
 And so before I cross the wave 
 
 And quit this fog-wrapt city, 
 I'll sing you all a simple stave, — 
 
 A deviating ditty. 
 
 I think the style of Pitt and Peel 
 
 Intolerably uniform. 
 Ere rhetoricians learnt to deal 
 
 In cryptograms and cuneiform. 
 I think abruptness in a speech 
 
 An underbred atrocity, 
 And so I practise, as I preach. 
 
 Exuberant verbosity. 
 
THE CHAUNT OF IHE BRONZE MASK. 35 
 
 I think that Dillon's much maligned, 
 
 That Blunt is most Quixotic ; — 
 Although his poetry I find 
 
 A trifle too erotic. 
 I think the books of Mr, Bryce 
 
 Are humorous and spicy ; 
 I think the use of loaded dice 
 
 Appropriate to Dicey. 
 
 I think that Tanners should not stray 
 
 Beyond their native tan-yards : 
 I think that Balfour, in his way, 
 
 Exceeds the torturing Spaniards. 
 I think, whatever Parnell thinks 
 
 Is due to Erin's pleading. 
 Although it snaps the latest links, 
 
 There's reason for conceding. 
 
 I think that Ulster, loyal drudge, 
 
 Could never wax rebellious : 
 I think by far the greatest judge 
 
 Of jam is Aulus Gellius. 
 I think, ere Balfour drains the Bann, 
 
 The Jews will drain the Jordan : 
 I think I'd tramp to the Soudan 
 
 To lay the ghost of Gordon. 
 
 I think I have in Labouchere 
 The aptest of my pupils. 
 
36 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Although he harbours, I'm aware, 
 
 A plethora of scruples. 
 I think that Harcourt in his soul 
 
 Must have a hidden inkling, 
 That, where full moonlight floods the pole. 
 
 There's little need of "twinkling." 
 
 I think that I shall live to sing 
 
 One day "In questa tomba" 
 Over the ruin of the Thing 
 
 That I re-christened Bomba. 
 I think there's room for all, and scope 
 
 Beneath my old umbrella : 
 I think that if I were the Pope, 
 
 I'd canonize Kinsella. 
 
 I think the faithless R.I.C. 
 
 A set of brutal bandits, 
 Who execute illegally 
 
 Their lawless leader's mandates. 
 I think that quite the largest part 
 
 Of those who wear the ermine 
 Are rotten to the very heart, 
 
 And most unwholesome vermin. 
 
 I think, for his nutritious nibs, 
 We all of us should bless Epps : 
 
 I think that for finance and fibs 
 I flatten F. de Lesseps. 
 
THE CHAUNT OF THE BRONZE MASK. 37 
 
 The music of the Shan Van Vocht 
 
 I much prefer to Handel : 
 I think the game of Persico 
 
 Not worth a Roman candle. 
 
 I think, compared to such a dad, 
 
 Herbert's a hopeless oubit : 
 I think by thinking I can add 
 
 My stature to a cubit. 
 
 I think that as my cab is brought, 
 And dallying's detrimental, 
 
 Unless I quit this train of thought, 
 I'll miss the " Continental." 
 
38 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 ^bim'6 trim's Sentiments. 
 
 O'CoNNELL fenced too fairly for Repeal, boys ; 
 
 O'Connell's dead as mutton ; 
 / much prefer to ply my savage steel, boys, 
 
 Unguarded by a button. 
 
 O'Connell was a scurvy " single-drop " man ; 
 
 O'Connell's gone to glory ; 
 But I'm a take-the-ball-upon-the-hop man, 
 
 A hop however gory. 
 
VERNON A VICK. 39 
 
 Demon Hvicft! 
 
 {Dedicated without permission to the Author of ''Father 
 O Flynn" by the Author of " The Blarney Ballads T) 
 
 Of all the gay " scions " and sprigs of nobility, 
 Far renowned for their grace and agility, 
 Faix I'd advance you for sheer volatility, 
 Vernon avick ! as the flower of them all. 
 Here's a health to you, Vernon avicic ! 
 Long may you flounder through thin and through thick, 
 Merriest mummer, 
 And burliest " bummer," * 
 And loudest big drummer in Westminster Hall. 
 
 Don't talk of your sages and seers of antiquity. 
 Famous for rectitude — or for obliquity, 
 Faix an' the divils at mental ubiquity, 
 Vernon avick ! would make hay of them all. 
 Come, I'll wager that nobody quite 
 Aiquals his elegant blatherumskite, 
 Down from urbanity 
 Into inanity. 
 Troth ! and profanity — if he'd the call. 
 
 * Bummer. Primarily an idle, worthless fellow. Now used in a political 
 as well as a general sense, to denote the hireling or henchman of a party. 
 See " Farmer's Americanisms." 
 
40 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Arrah, Vernon machree ! what were Bottom or Puck to you ? 
 Falstaff himself was a harmless ould buck to you ; 
 Look how you gather the Radical ruck to you, 
 Wisha bad luck to you, Vernon avick ! 
 
 Still, for all you're the prince of buffoons, 
 Gad ! you've the dash of a troop of dragoons, 
 Firing the flagging ones, 
 Bolstering the bragging ones, 
 Leathering the lagging ones on wid the stick. 
 
 And though never crossing the confines of charity, 
 Still, in your moments of mammoth hilarity, 
 Who, without showing the direst disparity. 
 Vies in vulgarity, Vernon, with you ? 
 
 Once Sir Ughtred was minded to frown. 
 Till this remark broke his prudery down — 
 " Is it lave jollity 
 All to the ' quality ' ? 
 Cannot we masses be mountebanks too ? " 
 Here's a health to you, Vernon avick ! 
 Long may you flounder through thin and through thick, 
 Merriest mummer. 
 And burliest " bummer," 
 And loudest big drummer in Westminster Hall. 
 
^J.^fi 
 
 • »A._Aa«,-«iCi^.'>-''-><i>^r '^«/ • 
 
 ■VERNON AVICK: 
 
SELECTIONS FROM THE NEW BILLIAD. 
 
 1. Bill^ ©'Brien. 
 
 {To the air of ' Bryan O'Lynn") 
 
 Billy O'Brien had no breeches to wear, 
 But the Blarney girls wove him so splendid a pair, 
 Wan peep in the glass made his streamin' eyes shine, 
 " How they suit my complexion ! " said Billy O'Brien. 
 
 Bill grew so wake on the Prison Board fare 
 
 That his friends vowed to view him would make a saint 
 
 swear ; 
 But the whole of the time he was starvin' to death 
 Bill was boltin' ham sandwiches under his breath. 
 
 Och ! the people they sot up a wonderful shout 
 For a new Tug of War, whin their lad was let out ; 
 For they knew that the Parlymint, Peelers, and Pope, 
 Must go down wid Bill grippin' their end of the rope. 
 
 Billy O'Brien kem into the Court, 
 Wid Tim Healy to show the Removables sport. 
 But when the big fools intherfared wid their noise. 
 He let himself out on leg-bail wid the boys. 
 
42 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Billy O'Brien disappeared in the dark 
 On Miss O'Neill's arm, like the dove from No'h's ark ; 
 Till into Hulme Hall he shot up from the south, 
 Wid Erin's own olive-branch fast in his mouth. 
 
 And whin like a love-bird from Miss O'Neill's bakery 
 He flew to his feet, Jacob Bright, that kind Quaker, he 
 Blubbered and sobbed wid hysterical joy, 
 Bil— ly O'Bri— en. Oh ! Bil— ly, my boy ! " 
 
 <( 
 
 'Twas then that dear turtle-dove fresh from Porthcawl 
 Unfolded his tale o'er the heads of them all. 
 And whin Manchester'd heard his sweet message of peace 
 She handed him over to Balfour's police. 
 
 Now Bill's back in jail in ondacent ondress. 
 And betune his torn breeks and the landlord's disthress, 
 Twixt the Plan and the Man, 'pon my conscience I'm curst 
 If I rightly can tell you whose rents are the worst. 
 
REMEMBER O'BRIEN. 43 
 
 2. IRemcmber ©'Brien. 
 
 (A Song for February, 1889.) 
 
 Erin, wake ! for maimed and maneless 
 Lies your lion-hearted son ; 
 
 Simple, scholarly and stainless, 
 Saint and soldier rolled in one. 
 Howl and shriek and wail and whine 
 For the shaving of O' Brine : 
 
 Gather in your market-places, 
 
 Heap hot coals upon your faces ; 
 For the pride of Innisfail 
 Paces shirtless in his jail. 
 
 Wake ! Remember O'Brien ! 
 
 He who at the hill of Dollis 
 Loved desipere in loco. 
 
 Now must sip, his soul to solace, 
 Vile and enervating cocoa. 
 He who once on venison fed. 
 Now must batten on brown bread, 
 
 And inadequately sate his 
 
 Appetite on boiled " pitaties," 
 Till his saintly stomach turns 
 And for daintier diet yearns. 
 
 Wirrasthrue ! for William O'Brien. 
 
44 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 He who once in Tipperary 
 
 Strove and struggled day and night 
 
 Till he lowered rents to prairie 
 Value, lies in piteous plight : 
 In a dungeon, deep and dank. 
 He is pining on the plank. 
 
 He who bearded all the Cecils 
 
 Now with brawny warders wrestles, 
 Till he falleth in a faint, 
 And the sinners shear the saint. 
 
 Ochone ! for William O'Brien. 
 
 By the sunken Alabama, 
 By the Great Gun of Athlone,* 
 
 By the love of melodrama 
 Bred in your Hibernian bone. 
 Burst the bolts of the Bastille, 
 Make the skinny Scotchman reel : 
 Pour your blood nor stint your riches 
 Till a thousand pairs of breeches 
 (Spite of turnkeys fierce and fell) 
 Fill the bare-legged patriot's cell. 
 Hurroo ! for William O'Brien. 
 
 * Cf. the historic curse, " May you be eternally crammed, jammed, and 
 rammed down the mouth of the Great Gun of Athlone.'' This historic piece 
 of ordnance has no connection with the " Canon of Aughrim,'' mentioned 
 in Mr. Blunt's Li Vinculis. 
 
REMEMBER O'BRIEN. 45 
 
 Every man that has a penny 
 
 Should invest in dynamite : 
 Up ! ye kittens of Kilkenny, 
 
 Fling yourselves into the fight : 
 
 Whet your teeth and bare your nails, 
 
 Tread upon each other's tails : 
 Raise a resolute, appalling. 
 Patriotic caterwauling. 
 
 Till the Viceroy, sick at soul, 
 
 Scuttles off to mind his coal. 
 Miaow ! for William O'Brien. 
 
 Do not stick at scurvy trifles, 
 
 Do not be content with speech ; 
 Point your pikes and load your rifles 
 
 From the muzzle to the breech ! 
 
 Did not he, the stainless-souled. 
 
 Languish in the collier's hold ? 
 Did not he, ere quitting Carrick, 
 Act more gallantly than Garrick ? 
 
 Which of you can hold a candle 
 
 To the latchet of his sandal ? 
 Pooh ! Remember O'Brien ! 
 
 Patriots, when the storm-clouds thicken 
 
 Do not fear to bear the brunt : 
 Strike, — but mind you are not stricken ; 
 
 Place your women in the front. 
 
 Most heroic harlequins. 
 
 Save your bacon, save your skins : 
 
46 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Capture bringeth not disaster 
 If ye stick, like sticking-plaster, 
 
 To your shirts and nether hose. 
 
 So shall Erin crush her foes, 
 Thanks to William O'Brien ! 
 
DUNGEON DOGGEREL. 47 
 
 3. Dungeon ©ogacrel. 
 
 Being a Cycle of Sonnets composed in a spirit of 
 disrespectful discipleship, after the perusal of Mr. Blunt's 
 In Vinculis. 
 
 He Becometh Enamoured of Death. 
 
 Naked I came into this witless world, 
 
 And well-nigh naked for the nonce I tramp 
 These bare, bleak boards, uncarpeted and damp. 
 
 But for the blanket round my shoulders furled. 
 
 The henchmen of Barabbas fiercely hurled 
 Themselves upon me, till my senses fled ; 
 And when life came again, my hapless head 
 
 Had lost the locks that round my temples curled. 
 
 O death, I much mislike thee ; yet, methinks, 
 On certain terms I would not fear to meet thee ; 
 
 From thy fell pangs my stainless spirit shrinks, 
 Yet if all men could see them, I would greet thee. 
 
 Yea, all I would renounce — love, life, and salary — 
 
 If, dying, I were sure of a good gallery. 
 
48 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 But on Second Thoughts Decideth to Live. 
 
 Nay, I will live. Why should I snuff life's candle, 
 When, living, goodliest guerdon I may reap ? 
 Why should I barter for death's leaden sleep 
 
 A life untarnished by the taint of scandal ? 
 
 Why should I, like the Viking or the Vandal, 
 Pour out my blood in a Quixotic quest. 
 Unbraced, unbreeched, uncollared, and undrest, 
 
 A bootless eremite, sans shirt, sans sandal ? 
 
 Life be it then, for I am sweet and dear 
 To nostrils in the which I lately stunk ; 
 
 Life, for I long to banquet with the peer 
 I likened to the polecat and the skunk ; 
 
 Life, for I mean, though stripped and clipped and shorn. 
 
 To beard the Lion and the Unicorn. 
 
 He Rebuketh a Friend who Biddeth Him Take Comfort by 
 the Sufferings of Others. 
 
 Talk not to me, entombed in this abyss. 
 
 Of Christian martyrs, mangled by the beasts, 
 Of living torches burnt at Nero's feasts, 
 
 Nor of the brazen bull of Phalaris. 
 
 Prate not, as though I were a schoolroom miss, 
 Of Regulus, devoid of all apparel, 
 Pierced by the knives within his rolling barrel, — 
 
 Compared to mine, a fate fulfilled with bliss. 
 
DUNGEON DOGGEREL. 49 
 
 What do I care for Roman, or Greek, 
 
 Or how they suffered and endured and died ? 
 
 Thus much I know : my tortures are unique ; 
 No saint was more completely crucified.* 
 
 vile affront, like to a babe in bibs, 
 Compelled to drink these nauseating nibs. 
 
 He Successfully Resisteth an Attempt to Ascertain His 
 
 Weight. 
 
 To-day a day of agony hath been : 
 
 For, catching me asleep — which was not fair — 
 Ten giant gaolers placed me in a chair, 
 
 And tried to weigh me, and there was a scene, 
 
 For I, albeit haggard, livid, lean, 
 
 Made such a gallant fight for the good cause. 
 That, bursting from my hellish captors' claws, 
 
 1 utterly capsized the whole machine. 
 
 A hundred thousand Irishmen know well, — 
 
 Aye, to an ounce — the stones and pounds I scale ; 
 
 But they, true hearts, would sooner die than tell 
 To any foe of mine that wondrous tale. 
 
 Herein at least I triumph over fate ; 
 
 Balfour shall never know my fighting weight. 
 
 * Vide "Remember O'Brien " (/« Vinculis, p. 19) : — 
 "Ireland! plead before high heaven 
 For your saint upon his cross." 
 It would appear that Mr. O'Brien has supplanted Arabi in the affections of 
 Mr. Blunt. In The Wind and the Whirlwind there occurs a literary travesty 
 of the crucifixion in which Arabi is the central figure. 
 
 E 
 
so THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 He Receiveth a Packet of Surreptitious Sandwiches. 
 
 Fond pledges of a loving nation's trust, 
 
 Sweet sandwiches, that some admirer threw 
 So deftly that they fell adown the flue, 
 
 All packed in paper to defy the dust ; — 
 
 How good ye are ! how innocent of crust ! 
 
 And some are ham, and some again are tongue ! 
 Could Balfour see me, would he not be stung 
 
 With bitter disappointment and disgust ! 
 
 But soft ! my sanguinary gaoler comes ; 
 
 I hear a distant door's re-echoing slam ; 
 Quick! let me gobble up yon tell-tale crumbs, 
 
 Yon filmy fragment of delicious ham. 
 Come life, come death, whatever may betide. 
 At least my sandwiches are safe inside. 
 
 He Entcrtaineth a Visitor. 
 
 Condon, whom Fate imperiously hath called 
 From cutting up the carcases of kine. 
 To startle with thy eloquence divine 
 
 The Saxon senate, like an ancient Skald — 
 
 Livid and pale thou findest me, and mauled, 
 For snicker-snack th' inexorable blade. 
 As I lay fainting, round my temples played. 
 
 Till I revived, invincible but bald. 
 
DUNGEON DOGGEREL. 51 
 
 In Rome, 'tis said, when augurs met each other, 
 They found it parlous hard to hide their fun ; 
 
 So, when I gaze into thine eyes, my brother. 
 
 And hear thee say, " The field is fought and won," * 
 
 Condon, brave throttler of the innocent calf, 
 
 Good brother augur, loud and long I laugh. 
 
 He Heareth a Cheering Anecaote. 
 
 This afternoon a ray of comfort gleamed 
 Upon my darkness, for there came a friend, 
 Who told me that from Lanark to Land's End 
 
 The tide was flowing faster than I dreamed. 
 
 For sheltering in a shop, while rain-clouds streamed. 
 He heard a mother to her child who spake, 
 " Say ' Bloody Balfour,' darlint, and this cake 
 
 Shall be thine own," — and straight the babe blasphemed. 
 
 O gallant mother ! O heroic child ! 
 
 What priceless teaching in this tale is found ! 
 Let Balfour's name be everywhere reviled, 
 
 Till babes unborn shall learn to loathe its sound. 
 Thus, having scotched the gory Scottish snake, 
 Erin shall ultimately " take the cake." 
 
 * Vide United Ireland, Feb. 9th, 1889, in which Mr. Condon, M.P., 
 writes : " I was conveyed to Mr. O'Brien's cell, and was almost amazed to 
 find him put-ting his clothes on. I took his hand and said, ' My dear William, 
 the field is fought and won.' He smiled and said, ' It is'nt lost, Tom,' adding, 
 ' It was a stiff fight ■, but, thank God, it is all over, though to fight physically 
 has cost me something.' " 
 
52 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 He Waxeth Comparatively Chirpy. 
 
 My prison grows a paradise of late ; 
 
 This morn they took me from my dungeon bare, 
 And straight ensconced me in an easy chair, 
 
 Before a fire that roareth in the grate. 
 
 And furthermore, they actually state 
 
 That I no more need taste the noxious nibs, 
 At which my stainless stomach shies and jibs, 
 
 As steeds refuse to leap a five-barred gate. 
 
 My appetite returns. Ho ! seneschal, 
 Fetch me another helping of roast beef ; 
 
 Stint not thy gravy, man, but over all 
 Pour it profuse. I am no common thief 
 
 See how the flickering flame leaps up ! Ha ! ha ! 
 
 Erin Mavourneen — Here's the beef — go-bragh ! 
 
THE FRETFUL POFK-O'-BRINE. 53 
 
 4. Z\)Z jfretful lporli*®'*Brine. 
 
 Hark you, John Bully, not John Bull, — 
 
 Since bullying's your latest line — 
 For each particular hair you pull 
 
 From off the fretful Pork-O'- Brine, 
 For each bright thread of Billy's curl. 
 
 That from its roots your ruffians hale, 
 The entrails of a Saxon Earl 
 
 Shall glut the vengeance of the Gael. 
 
 Chorus. — On hearthstone and on heather. 
 Hand in hand together, 
 We ruthless I.R.B.'s, 
 Declare it, declare it. 
 And swear, swear, SWear it, 
 Upon our bended knees. 
 
 For every solitary scratch 
 
 On Bill O'Brien's sainted skin, 
 A County Councillor we'll catch. 
 
 And card complete from heel to chin : 
 While if one drop of blood we scan 
 
 Upon that pelt of shivering snow. 
 By Heavens ! a County Alderman 
 
 Shall in his gushing gore lie low. 
 
 Chorus. — On hearthstone and on heather, etc. 
 
54 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 And look you, for the scattered chips 
 
 Of Billy's splintered golden specs, 
 Our submarine torpedo-ships 
 
 Shall leave a line of smoking wrecks. 
 And should your murderous mamelukes 
 
 One labouring limb of Billy's break, 
 A brace of belted British dukes 
 
 Shall bite the dust, and no mistake. 
 
 Chorvs. — On hearthstone and on heather, etc. 
 
 But if his life, his precious life, 
 
 At last our struggling saint foregoes. 
 Maintaining such unequal strife 
 
 Against his multitudinous foes, — 
 Ay, if while wrestling for his bags 
 
 With brutal warders, one to four, 
 Our prisoned martyr fails and flags. 
 
 Falls, faints, expires, and is no more : — 
 
 [Allegro con brio.) 
 
 To right the wrong, and wrong the right, 
 
 About poor Bill's continuations, 
 With tons of deadly dynamite 
 
 We'll make undying demonstrations 
 Against your Crown and Church and State 
 Through centuries of holy hate ; 
 Until the scornful finger of Fate 
 Points to old England bothered and bate. 
 
THE FRETFUL PORK-G-BRINE. 55 
 
 Sitting in darkness desolate, 
 
 Down in the dust, with ten hundredweight 
 
 Of cruel chains accoutred complate. 
 
 The Niobe of Nations ! 
 And Erin, flourishing grand and great. 
 And laughing fit to fall from her sate, 
 
 At her tyrant's tribulations. 
 
 Chorus. — On hearthstone and on heather, 
 
 Hand in hand together. 
 
 We ruthless I.R.B.'s 
 Declare it, declare it. 
 And swear, swear, SWCar it. 
 
 Upon our bended knees. 
 
56 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 5. H "jfirst (Tlase" fllMsbemeanant. 
 
 Through all my illustrious life, 
 
 I always have travelled ist class, 
 Havin' no ayconomical wife 
 
 Or childher my comfort to crass : 
 But I ceaselessly flourish and fatten 
 
 On the wage of the downtrodden mass, 
 By settin' blackthorn agin baton, 
 
 Wid my bluster, and bunkum, and brass. 
 So I'm blest if I'll thravel 3rd class, 
 I'm d d if I'll thravel 3rd class. 
 
 Wid no curtain to shelter my sight 
 
 From the glare through that glitterin' glass, 
 And no carpet my feet to invite 
 
 To its patthern of flower-bestrewn grass ; 
 And bolstherin' my head and my back 
 
 On bare boards, by some barefooted lass, — 
 Och ! supposin' the train from the track 
 
 For one half quarter second should pass, 
 I'd be killed in this cruel 3rd class : 
 So I'm d d if I'll thravel 3rd class. 
 
A "FIRST CLASS" MISDEMEANANT. 57 
 
 Shall the stock of great Brian Boru, 
 
 For refusin' this doorstep to crass, 
 Wid the blood in his veins boilin' blue, 
 
 Through the windy be hoisted, alas ? 
 Ye bla'gudrds, I'll not tamely be stored 
 
 Like a barrel of Guinness or Bass, 
 But come kickin' and brayin' on board 
 
 On the crane, like an angry jackass. 
 By the Crass and the Mass I'll not thravel 3rd class : 
 No, I'm d d if I'll thravel 3rd class. 
 
SS THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED 
 
 TTbc mew jevangcl. 
 
 Long weary of the irksome need 
 
 Of making up our minds, 
 Our old uncomfortable creed 
 
 We're casting to the winds : 
 And this shall be in every key 
 
 The burden of our song — 
 In spite of all that may befal, 
 
 Our Chief can do no wrong. 
 
 To logic in an earlier day 
 
 We made a faint pretence, 
 And managed now and then to stray 
 
 Into the realms of sense ; 
 But Sense, poor drudging slattern. 
 
 Our Chief has packed along 
 With Logic off to Saturn — 
 
 And our Chief can do no wrong. 
 
 For Hartington in former years 
 
 We nursed a predilection, 
 Joseph and James were ancient flames, 
 
 John claimed our warm affection ; 
 But John may go to Jericho, 
 
 And Joseph to Hong Kong, 
 Until they own our Chief alone 
 
 Is never in the wrong. 
 
THE NEW EVANGEL. 59 
 
 Poor Erin we considered then 
 
 A spoilt and wayward child, 
 And thought the rufe of Englishmen 
 
 Exceptionally mild ; 
 Now 'twixt the knout that Russians use 
 
 And fierce Britannia's prong, 
 Our Chief declares there's naught to choose, 
 
 And our Chief is never wrong. 
 
 Of old, in speaking of Parnell, 
 
 Our mouths were fa,r from mealy, 
 With zeal infuriate we fell 
 
 On Dillon and on Healy ; 
 But now we stroke the very backs 
 
 That felt our furious thong, 
 For our Chief has buried his battle-axe, 
 
 And our Chief is never wrong. 
 
 Did Erin's children " deviate " 
 
 From the high-road of "humanity," 
 We lashed ourselves into a state 
 
 Of positive insanity. 
 But now our Chief " blushes " * with grief 
 
 To find that devious throng 
 Imbibed their guile from Albion's Isle, 
 
 And our Chief is never wrong, 
 
 * Mr. Gladstone wrote as follows : " The Irish are a very humane people, 
 and the history of an occasional deviation from humanity in regard to cattle 
 has a peculiar history, which ought to make us blush as well as them." 
 Standard, October i8th, 1888. 
 
6o THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 So when he wires to Rosebery, 
 
 " Remember Punchestown ! " 
 Or offers to play pantaloon 
 
 To Dr. Tanner's clown, 
 With loyal lips, spite of all slips, 
 
 In accents loud and strong. 
 We raise on high our battle-cry — 
 
 " Our Chief can do no wronsr ! " 
 
NAPPER TANDY AND I. 
 
 6i 
 
 IRapper (Tanb^ anb 3; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE NEW BOMBASTES FURIOSO. 
 
 / met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand, 
 And he said, " How's poor ouid Ireland, and how does she 
 
 stand?" 
 She's the most disthressful coimtry that ever yet was seen. 
 For they're hanging men and women for the wearin of the 
 green. 
 
 Napper. " When Bombastes Furioso, 
 
 In his fresh, untrammelled youth, 
 From the Italian captives, oh ! so 
 
 Opportunely pumped the truth : 
 What a sanguinary story 
 
 Of the thumb-screw, rope and rack. 
 Ghoulish gaoler, headsman gory. 
 
 His precocious pen sent back ! 
 What a gory, Tory story 
 
 His precocious pen sent back ! 
 
 Napper Tandy 
 taketh me by the 
 hand, and telleth 
 me of the mar- 
 vellous freeing of 
 the Italian cap- 
 tives by the youth 
 William. 
 
THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 "It was August or September ; 
 
 We were robed in summer suits ; 
 But distinctly I remember 
 
 How we shivered in our boots, 
 When that tragical recital 
 
 Made our British blood run cold, 
 Then boil up for swift requital 
 
 On the Italian tyrant's hold — ■ 
 Yes ! each vital craved requital 
 
 On that murderous monster's hold. 
 
 " Then what telegraphic greetings 
 Fell at Furioso's feet ! 
 
 Then what indignation meetings 
 
 Packed the park and blocked the street ! 
 
 Till our myriads rushed to Naples 
 In their red-coats o'er the sea, — 
 
 Rushed and wrenched those prison staples- 
 Wrenched, and set the captives free ; 
 
 Onward dashing, slashing, smashing, 
 Till each captive soul was free." 
 
 /. " Napper Tandy, daring; Napper, itdoubteth me 
 
 Draw it milder for a spell ; of Napper's taie. 
 
 Furioso was the clapper 
 To Italia's tocsin bell ; 
 But it's been my firm persuasion 
 Garibaldi's hand alone, 
 
NAPPER TANDY AND /. 
 
 On that glorious occasion, 
 
 Hoisted Bomba from his throne : 
 Such evasion and abrasion 
 
 Of the facts I've never known ! " 
 
 63 
 
 Napper. "Nay, my friend, no fictive fancies 
 
 With my reason run away ; 
 Verne's and Haggard's mad romances 
 
 Have not set my mind astray ; 
 Yet with Bismarck's and Grimaldi's 
 
 Judgment I must still agree : 
 ' Gladstones and not Garibaldi s 
 
 Bombs blew Bombds captives free,— 
 To a rhombus blasted Bombds 
 
 Throne and blew his captives free.' " 
 
 But he justifieth 
 himself out of 
 the mouth of Bis- 
 marck and Gri- 
 maldi. 
 
 /. " Napper, ev'n if I conceded — 
 
 And concede it, sir, I shan't — 
 What you might as well have pleaded 
 
 For King Milan's maiden aunt ; 
 We so far have got no nearer 
 
 To the facts, — pray, have a care ! 
 Be more consequent and clearer. 
 
 Or I certainly shall swear ; 
 Do be clearer and severer, 
 
 Or most certainly I'll swear! 
 
 Napper is be- 
 sought to be 
 clearer. 
 
64 
 
 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 " But I first must have my innings, 
 
 For you're always cutting in, 
 Shutting up my best beginnings 
 
 With your desultory din. 
 Grant Bombastes' generous crazes, 
 
 Grant his glorious Double First, 
 Is this man that now amazes. 
 
 Quite consistent with the first ? 
 Is the second Furioso, 
 
 One poor patch upon the first ? 
 
 But a hear- 
 ing is first 
 craved for my- 
 self. 
 
 ' When Bombastes Furioso, 
 
 Napper, when that "goose-green" sage 
 For the Irish captives, oh ! so 
 
 Lost his reason in his rage ; 
 What a sanguinary story 
 
 Oh ! what whacking paddy-whacks 
 He poured forth of Mick and Rory 
 
 Torn on Balfour's tyrant racks ! 
 What a gory, Tory story ! 
 
 Oh ! what whacking paddy- whacks." 
 
 It mindeth 
 me of Wil- 
 liam's marvel- 
 lous tale of the 
 Irish captives. 
 
 Napper. " If but " 
 
 /. " Now, no ' ifs ' and ' but '-ings ! 
 Do you ever read the Times ? 
 Here are twenty paper cuttings 
 
 On Bombastes' ' prison crimes.' 
 When his parallels historic 
 Proved absurdly false at last 
 
 Napper 
 would fain in- 
 terrupt con- 
 cerning Wil- 
 liam's prison 
 parallel bars. 
 
NAPPE R TANDY AND I. 
 
 6S 
 
 From his own clear, categoric 
 
 Statements in the early past, — - 
 When they proved his recollections 
 
 Inconsistent quite with fact,. 
 Did Bombastes make corrections, 
 
 Reconsider, or retract ? 
 Did he make complete corrections, 
 
 Did he candidly retract ? 
 No, your hero, with a shuffle, 
 
 On old Falstaff's ' buckram ' plan. 
 Skilfully from out the scuffle — 
 
 From his own creations ran." 
 
 Napper. " Now, by Miriam and Moses, 
 
 By the plagues of frogs and flies, 
 Who on earth, do you think, supposes 
 
 Demagogues apologize ? 
 Is it make the people's idol 
 
 Contradict himself, bedad, — 
 Hold his tongue with bit and bridle ? 
 
 Well, you really must be mad ! 
 You might just as well a tidal 
 
 Wave attempt to tame, bedad ! " 
 
 Napper justi- 
 fieth William s re- 
 fusal to contradict 
 himself. 
 
 /. " FurioSO was a Tory „,.„. Concerning 
 
 ^ William s incon- 
 
 Once, with smooth, unsilvered head ; sistency. 
 Now his lion mane is hoary, 
 But the rest of him is Red. 
 
66 
 
 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Furioso, for that aeon, 
 
 Acted England's Pericles ; 
 
 Now he poses as her Cleon : — 
 Which is preferable, please, 
 
 Cleon for another seon, 
 Or one hour of Pericles ?" 
 
 Napper. "Well, and if he's changed opinions, 
 
 Let me ask you who has not. 
 But the parasitic minions 
 
 Of the Empire of dry rot ? 
 Change is never detrimental 
 
 To the rightly balanced mind ; 
 Change is human — rent and rental 
 
 Shift by laws of class and kind ; 
 Constant sun is detrimental, 
 
 So is constant rain and wind. 
 
 Napper dis- 
 courseth subtly on 
 the doctrine of 
 Universal Flux. 
 
 And showeth 
 that consistency 
 doth argue a 
 narrow mind. 
 
 Intellects of meaner measure. 
 
 Filaments of filigree. 
 Take a most provoking pleasure 
 
 In so-called consistency : 
 Poring with profound attention 
 
 O'er the precepts of the primer ; 
 Seized with far less apprehension 
 
 Of the nick-name ' fool ' than ' trimmer,' 
 Greatly erring in preferring 
 
 ' Fool ' and ' ass,' to, ' knave ' and ' trimmer.' 
 
NAFFER TANDY AND I. 67 
 
 " Geniuses of ampler essence . ^"' '^^' '"'=°°" 
 
 '- sistency apper- 
 
 Chancfe their colours like the flower, taineth to great 
 
 _ souls. 
 
 Or the magic iridescence 
 
 Of the mackerel's dying hour ; 
 Arching still, o'er joy and sorrow, 
 
 Hope's refreshing rainbow ray ; 
 Ne'er neglecting for To-morrow 
 
 Their first duty to To-day : 
 Lending where they cannot borrow, 
 
 Borrowing where they cannot pay ! '' 
 
 /. " Fiend ! with slimy, supersubtle , ^o tree myself 
 
 -' -"^ from Napper s 
 
 Feelers, I perceive your wish fallacies i am fain 
 
 ■■■ ■' to oiier him 
 
 My poor craft to catch and scuttle, violence. 
 
 You fallacious cuttle-fish ! 
 So take that, you subtle, cuttle, 
 
 Supersubtle cuttle-fish ! 
 Napper, I've another handy. 
 
 And, as sure as eggs is eggs, 
 If you will not hook it, Tandy, — ■ 
 
 Take like blazes to your legs, — 
 I'll not leave a locus standi, 
 
 Tandy, for your bandy legs." 
 
68 THE GREEN ABOVE 7'HE RED. 
 
 a Dalentinc from ilDotber Sbipton. 
 
 When irreconcilable Reds 
 
 Turn irreconcilably green, 
 With their hearts grown as big as their heads, 
 
 And their heads shrunk too small to be seen : 
 When they pin their huge hearts to their sleeves- 
 
 In spite of Polonius's saw — ■ 
 Or at least most exact make-believes, 
 
 To be pecked by each Irish Jackdaw : 
 " Old England is on her beam-ends," 
 Says old Mother Shipton, my friends. 
 
 When the Island of Saints shall instruct 
 
 Her Sister's professors once more, 
 And a Cook shall those scholars conduct 
 
 The whole tour of the Emerald shore : 
 When Malachy's collar of gold 
 
 Round the waist of a Sexton is worn. 
 And O'Brien Boru in the cold, 
 
 Sits as bare as the hour he was born : 
 And Albion kneels with pale cheeks. 
 
 Taking peeps through his black prison door, 
 And pants for one glimpse of his breeks. 
 
 But won't give one glance at Gweedore : — 
 " Old England is on her beam-ends," 
 Says old Mother Shipton, my friends. 
 
A VALENTINE FROM MOTHER SHIPTON. 69 
 
 Then St. Stephen's sky-high shall be blown, 
 
 And the Tower take a turn in the air, 
 And a terrible Yankee cyclone 
 
 Suck the Times out of Printing House Square : 
 Then old England, Church, Sceptre, and Crown, 
 With a cry in the dust shall go down. 
 
70 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 ^be Bo^cottcrs. 
 
 What makes ye sit silent ? Come fill up yer bowls, 
 Wid a jorum of Jameson, arrah yer sowls ! 
 
 How the stuff cuts me throttle! — Be Gob, I'd forgot 
 That whisky and porter and beer was boycott. 
 
 For the cause I would part wid me next neighbour's eyes, 
 Then away wid the drink, we'll boycott the Excise ; 
 
 And we'll soon bring' the Sassenach spoilers to bay; 
 Tho\ for my part, I'd rather they d boycott the tay. 
 
 When we've done wid the liquor, we'll turn mighty quiet, 
 And labour as hard as we would at a riot, 
 
 Till the pounds in our pockets like joy-bells go clink ; 
 Still ari all what are riches zaid nothing to drink ? 
 
 I never liked work ; but av coorse, to be frank, 
 If, like S , I was let overdraw at the bank, 
 
 I'd slave at my desk, a director of fame, 
 
 Turnin' rags into gold just by writing my name. 
 
 You may talk, if you like, of philosophers' stones. 
 But my plan bangs 'em aisy, without any bones ; 
 
 Yes, that'd just suit me ; but, arrah, be quiet ; 
 
 I'd forgot that the bank was boycotted last night. 
 
THE B0YC02TERS. 71 
 
 'Deed we couldn't do less, for we're bound not to dale 
 Wid a Government bank till we come to Repale : 
 
 {Aside) But till those good times, wirrah ! what'U we do ? 
 JFor our notes and our bills sure the League wont renew. 
 
 When the land is our own, we can live at our aise ; 
 
 Turf grows the best praties and makes a fine blaze ; 
 Mud walls are the warmest and scraws the best thatch ; 
 
 Wid a "cow and three acres " I'll soon make a match. 
 
 Then here's to my Nora in a bowl of poteen, 
 
 Which is home manufacture and fit for a Queen ! 
 
 What's that you are whisperin', Hoolahan ? what ! 
 My own Colleen Bawn by the League is boyc6tt ! 
 
 Have they clipped her brown hair? Don't stand like a fool: 
 Do ye say that they've carded my Nora, my jew'l ? 
 
 To Hell wid the League ! — -Sergeant rache us yer fist, 
 And in your red army this hour I'll enlist. 
 
72 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 l^e primrose Mmes ! 
 
 Ye Primrose Dames, ye Primrose Dames, 
 Who boycott Howell, boycott James, 
 And deal exclusively with Whiteley, 
 Do treat poor Paddy more politely ! 
 
 If you pursue the foolish fad 
 Of never buying from a Rad, 
 Why shouldn't he select as well 
 The customers to whom to sell ? 
 
 So, inconsistent Primrose gals, 
 Get where you will your fal-lal-lals, 
 And let Pat disappoint as often 
 His foes of bite and sup and coffin. 
 
THE ROOT OF THE MATTER. 73 
 
 ZCbc IRoot of tbe fiDatter. 
 
 [The wife of E. Harrington, Esq., M.P., writing from Tralee to a corre- 
 spondent respecting her husband's imprisonment, says: "Nothing could equal 
 the indignation of the people here at Balfour's cowardly act in cutting off my 
 husband's moustache; Numbers of Conservatives have expressed their dis- 
 gust to me in regard to the mean act. But even Balfour could not remove 
 the roots of it, so that one as good will grow again. And I am sure that a 
 moustache never had so many kind friends sympathetically watching its growth 
 as that one will have." — Standard, Feb. i, 1889.] 
 
 Sad Erin, put off thy dejection, 
 
 Thy languishing spirits arouse. 
 And give ear to the soothing reflection 
 
 Of Harrington's heroine spouse : 
 " Though Balfour may strip him and shave him 
 
 And starve him — 'tis little I care ; 
 For he's morally bound for to lave him 
 
 The roots of his hair." 
 
 Far viler than Nero or 0th o, 
 
 That sinister son of a gun 
 Sits on us like Lachesis, Clotho, 
 
 And Atropos welded in one. 
 But though we be helpless and lowly, 
 
 Though buffeted, battered, and bare, 
 He dare not eradicate wholly 
 
 The roots of our hair. 
 
74 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Like a ghastly and ghoulish gorilla, 
 
 Or a skeleton, skinny of shank, 
 He puffs at his perfumed Manilla, 
 
 We pine on the pestilent plank. 
 ■ Yet hope, in the wilderness blooming, 
 
 Unburdens our bosoms of care, 
 For we know he'll stop short of exhuming 
 
 The roots of our hair. 
 
 'Tis painful and cold and unsightly. 
 
 This shearing of Nature's own coat. 
 But we bear the indignity lightly, 
 
 We utter no querulous note. 
 For we know that from Bantry to Brixton 
 
 The eyes of the brave and the fair 
 Are in friendliest sympathy fixt on 
 
 The roots of our hair. 
 
 And those roots, like the Phoenix's ashes. 
 
 Shall sprout in profusion anew, 
 Till our patriot beards and moustaches 
 
 Shall cow the Coercionist crew : 
 Till Balfour, unable to brave us, 
 
 Shall own, in the depths of despair. 
 His folly in choosing to lave us 
 
 The roots of our hair. 
 
 Envoy. 
 
 The early political martyr 
 Was recklessly lavish of life : 
 
THE ROOT OF THE MATTER. 75 
 
 But we are not minded to barter 
 
 So cheaply the chances of strife. 
 Lost neckties we merely repine at, 
 
 Dress coats we contentedly spare ; 
 But we draw an impassable line at 
 
 The roots of our hair. 
 
76 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 (Tbe Xanb an^ tbe IRtnt. 
 
 (/;/ imitation of an old song called " The Sun and the Aloon.") 
 
 God bless the land ; 'twas a famous invintion 
 
 For rearing men, women, and children, and pigs. 
 
 While the rint was for ever a bone of contintion 
 'Twixt landlords and tinants, and lawyers in wigs. 
 
 But we'll all enjoy peace and require no more killin' 
 When, under the rule of O'Brien and Dillon, 
 
 'Tis decreed that the man is a traitor and villain 
 Who pays or asks rint in the Emerald Isle. 
 
LAW AND ORDER. 77 
 
 Xaw anb ®rbci\ 
 
 In the Pre-Parnellian epoch 
 
 Of my ever-green career, 
 To Erin's tale of blood and bale 
 
 I turned an adder's ear ; 
 Forebore to prate of '98, 
 
 Could scarce abide the brogue, 
 And wanted wit to prove your Pitt 
 
 A blackguard and a rosfue. 
 Policemen and Chief Justices 
 
 I held in holy awe, 
 As acolytes of Order, 
 
 Archangels of the Law. 
 
 In those dark days the Irish vote 
 
 Scarce reached a scurvy score ; 
 Parnell had not put off his coat, 
 
 Nor Balfour plunged in gore. 
 But when some fifty-seven or eight 
 
 Butt's craft had well in hand, 
 I said to Isaac, " Indicate 
 
 The scope of your demand." 
 So we gave Home Rule discussion cool, 
 
 But of course confessed no flaw 
 In the -^gis of our Order, 
 
 The Palladium of our Law. 
 
THE GREEN ABO VE THE RED. 
 
 Old Isaac gone, suave Shaw led on 
 
 Till Parnell mutlneered, 
 His crew controlled, and in our fold 
 
 Obstruction's Hydra reared. 
 Oh, would you gauge that monster's rage, 
 
 Or estimate aright 
 Its subtle strength, its awful length, 
 
 Its superhuman spite ; 
 Read a thousand close Times columns 
 
 Of Hibernian jeer and jaw. 
 And bewail our broken Order, 
 
 Mourn our dirt- bedraggled Law. 
 
 Meanwhile outside St. Stephen's, 
 
 Thanks to Davitt and Parnell, 
 In seven-leagued boots to limbo 
 
 Leaped on "The League of Hell." 
 Could you expect us tamely 
 
 To submit to such disgrace. 
 Or let punishment limp lamely, 
 
 When crime posted at such pace ? 
 Oh, no ! the Habeas Corpus 
 
 We were driven to withdraw. 
 And add blood-and-iron Order 
 
 To our milk-and-water Law. 
 
 Then our savage Saxon fetters 
 Galled again the shamrock shore : 
 
 Then no land, even Poland, 
 Ran so red with patriot gore. 
 
LAW AND ORDER. 79 
 
 But I found old English fustian 
 
 Can't be patched with Blarney tweed, 
 And new wine abrupt combustion 
 
 In old bottles still will breed : 
 For the No-Rent manifesto, 
 
 On the breath of usquebaugh, 
 From the cracked stone-jug of Order 
 
 Burst defiant of the Law. 
 
 Then I felt — even I, the former 
 
 Pillar-stone of Church and State — 
 My position wax still warmer 
 
 Through the irony of fate ; 
 Saw the deluge looming larger 
 
 With no vestige of an ark ; 
 Climbed like Curtius on my charger 
 
 Took one plunge into the dark, 
 Leaped a " measurable distance," 
 
 Snapped my Union sword of straw. 
 Joined Home Rule's resistless Order, 
 
 And defied the devil's Law. 
 
 It beards the Lyons in their den. 
 
 It fells the towering Pyne, 
 It interferes with Irishmen, 
 
 Who vivisect their kine ! 
 It starves and shaves your sons like slaves. 
 
 It hales your virgins tender 
 To gaol, ye gods ! and even quods 
 
 The infantile newsvendor ! 
 
THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Could I trust my piccaninnies, 
 Or resign my peerless squaw, 
 
 To the Hangman of that Order, 
 To the Hell-hounds of that Law ? 
 
 No ! the flowing tide is on our side. 
 
 The cup of wrath is full : 
 I'll back the Irish any day 
 
 Against the Papal Bull. 
 Oh soon with bliss we'll hoot and hiss 
 
 Each Bobby from the Square, 
 And let poor Hodge and 'Arry lodge 
 
 In the mansions of Mayfair : 
 We'll turn the nose of every hose 
 
 Controlled by Captain Shaw 
 On the myrmidons of Order 
 
 And the minions of the Law. 
 Charge, Dillon, charge ! On, Healy, on ! 
 
 Fall, Tanner, tooth and claw. 
 On the mastodons of Order, 
 
 And the mammoths of the Law ! 
 
SIR WILLIAM LOQUITUR. 
 
 Sir Milliam loquitur. 
 
 " Not being a Home Ruler, I never have adopted 
 The idea of ruHng Ireland by Irishmen's ideals ; " 
 
 I once dropped that observation, and I'm sorry that I 
 dropped it, 
 For it interferes most sadly with my Nationalist appeals. 
 
 " Without a doubt, the policy of Parnell's separation ; " 
 Once I ventured, most imprudently, in public to remark ; 
 
 For I found, just two months after, my political salvation 
 Under Parnell's light — and leading — by a leap into the dark. 
 
 I regret too that I commented so much on the immersion 
 Of Salisbury and his minions in the horrid Home Rule brew; 
 
 For we've plunged in it ourselves, by a magical conversion, 
 And Heav'n knows in what condition we shall struggle from 
 the stew! 
 
82 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 ^be pot=*bunter. 
 
 Shall I fawn for the favours of this Blood and Iron sham ? 
 Shall I " hang upon the smiles of a brazen battering-ram ? " * 
 Shall I kiss the cloven trotters of a lily-livered Scot ? 
 I should rather, 1 should rather, I should rather fancy not. 
 
 He has gagged me and dragged me away to Tullamore, 
 Torn the stitches from my breeches, flung me shivering on 
 
 the floor : 
 If you ask me for what reason I've defied the ruffian Scot, 
 Sure I answer, 'Tis a plan, sir, to ameliorate my lot. 
 
 For when my month is over, my wrongs I will rehearse. 
 Until the pitying public presents me with a purse : 
 And when the spring of sympathy at last has ceased to flow. 
 At the gory Irish government I'll have another go. 
 
 Let them baton me and flatten me, that's just my little plan ; 
 Bang, bustle me and hustle inside the prison van ; 
 For, till Balfour makes the practice inconveniently hot. 
 By recurring months of martyrdom I mean to make my pot. 
 
 * This phrase actually occurred in a Nationalist paper. 
 
WILLIAM'S MISSION. 83 
 
 MiIUam'0 riDisaion. 
 
 Dear Lady Laura, 
 
 Since you say 
 
 You're " really fairly puzzled 
 Over our present Irish Play," 
 
 And I'm. at last unmuzzled ; 
 I do most cheerfully confess. 
 
 What with ourselves and Pat, 
 Our friends must find it hard to guess 
 
 The game we now are at. 
 But come at once behind the scenes 
 
 Of our new Exhibition, 
 And learn — the mystery simply means 
 
 That William has a Mission. 
 
 And this is how it came about : — 
 
 After the last election 
 Poor Will looked painfully put out, 
 
 And couldn't bear correction ; 
 Nay on returning from the House, 
 
 He'd sit, for hours and hours. 
 Smelling, as mum as any mouse. 
 
 My artificial flowers ! 
 
84 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Or, with his hat upon his head, 
 
 With sudden expedition. 
 Go boots and axe and all to bed. 
 
 Inquiring, " What's my Mission ? " 
 
 Till I broke out, " Ah, can you not 
 
 Shake off this melancholy, 
 And put away your chimney-pot. 
 
 And look a little jolly ? 
 See ! to divert you, here are both 
 
 Your Homer and your Hatchet" — • 
 He only answered with an oath. 
 
 And didn't I just catch it ! 
 I fell into a flood of tears, 
 
 Till, smitten with contrition, 
 He swore he hadn't sworn for years, 
 
 Then sighed, " I've got no Mission." 
 
 I clutched him wildly by the arm 
 
 With most heart-broken pleadings. 
 And sobbed, " You fill me with alarm 
 
 By all these strange proceedings. 
 If any sorrow sears your soul, 
 
 With your true wife oh share it, 
 Tell me the whole truth, yes, the whole, — • 
 
 I'm brave enough to bear it." 
 He smiled and said, " You're in a most 
 
 Hysterical condition ; " 
 And went on buttering his toast 
 
 And muttering, " What's my Mission ? " 
 
WILLIAM'S MISSION. 85 
 
 Then I let William quite alone, 
 
 Till, as I dozed one night. 
 His dressing-gown around him thrown. 
 
 And in his hand a light. 
 Upstairs, dear, at a fearful pace 
 
 Into my room he ran. 
 Flicked his forefinger in my face. 
 
 And eagerly began : 
 " For weeks I've striven, with dreadful doubt 
 
 And desperate inquisition, 
 My destiny to puzzle out, — 
 
 To-night I know my Mission." 
 
 And then a flood of eloquence 
 
 I could not choose but follow, 
 Its interest was so intense. 
 
 Poured forth from my Apollo. 
 My dear, I don't pretend to think. 
 
 After the London season, 
 I could recall each precious link 
 
 In that rich chain of reason : 
 Still, though I can't affect to say 
 
 Mine is the full edition, 
 In my unstudied woman's way 
 
 I'll tell you William's Mission. 
 
 " You'll grant," he said, " the very beast 
 
 A more unerring guide, 
 — In very many ways at least — ■ 
 
 Than man's untutored pride. 
 
THE GREEN ABOVE 2 HE RED. 
 
 To pigs, in absolute despair 
 
 He must appeal to show 
 If fresh or unaccustomed fare 
 
 Is poisonous or no. 
 I, though I tower above you all 
 
 Like Ossa piled on Pelion, 
 Have learnt a lesson from the small 
 
 But versatile chameleon ; 
 And in the slippery paths of State, 
 
 Since first I learned to toddle, 
 Have held the hare's delusive gait 
 
 To be the safest model. 
 Yes ; every man, the more that he 
 
 Copies the brute creation. 
 Fulfils his final destiny 
 
 With closer consummation. 
 
 " And then, if Darwin's creed is true — 
 
 And I for one don't doubt it — 
 (For how would either I or you 
 
 Get on at all without it ?) 
 Could we discover what he terms 
 
 Somewhere ' the missing link ' — 
 Oh, yes ! it's in his book on Worms — 
 
 We'd demonstrate, I think. 
 That that is where the soul comes in. 
 
 Our most Divine addition ; " — 
 Now I daresay that you begin 
 
 To guess at William's Mission. 
 
WILLIAM'S MISSION. 87 
 
 I seem to see it in your face, 
 
 Yes, it's as clear as clear. 
 The soul is strongest in the race 
 
 To nature the most near : 
 And that is obviously the Celt, 
 
 Though it is rather odd 
 That only recently he's felt 
 
 The Celt is nearest God. 
 But then he says I'd not plucked out 
 
 The whole heart of the mystery. 
 Which he's arrived at now, no doubt. 
 
 By studying Irish history. 
 For in our heart of hearts a vein 
 
 Of kindred blood is smitten, 
 A still surviving Celtic strain 
 
 Caught on from ancient Britain ; 
 And drop by drop that British blood 
 
 Within our breasts is rising. 
 Until, an overwhelming flood, 
 
 A cataclysm surprising. 
 It whirls away the sinful sway 
 
 Of Torified tradition : 
 To live to guide that glorious tide 
 
 Is William Gladstone's mission ! 
 
 Yes, since they're far, far nearer heaven, 
 
 He must lead on the masses 
 To humble, purify, and leaven 
 
 The godless Upper Classes. 
 
THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Ay, warn, exhort, console, rebuke, 
 
 Till spiritual hunger 
 Is just as common in the Duke 
 
 As in the costermonger. 
 
 " Some rogues," he said, "whom I could name, 
 
 Who envy my renown, 
 Pretend my head is turned by fame 
 
 Completely upside down : 
 That o'er a precipice's edge 
 
 I'm plunging with placidity. 
 And swallowing every former pledge 
 
 With ostrich-like avidity — 
 Romancing over Ireland's wrongs, 
 
 And even making- much 
 Of men whom with a pair of tongs 
 
 I once had scorned to touch." 
 
 " But why," I asked, " exaggerate 
 
 Your facts, confuse your figures, 
 And in your language imitate 
 
 The Healys and the Biggars ? 
 For you will surely not deny 
 
 That that's your latest style. 
 Come, you admit it, don't you ? " I 
 
 Continued with a smile. 
 
 He answered, "When yourself a child. 
 Short-skirted, shod in sandals, 
 
WILLIAM'S MISSION. 89 
 
 By sceptic broodings unbeguiled, 
 
 And innocent of scandals, 
 Were your good parents ill-advised 
 
 To give you ' Pilgrim's Progress,' 
 Or fairy tales, with faults disguised 
 
 As gnome, or imp, or ogress ? 
 
 " Oh ! had they forced your girlish brain 
 
 To pore upon Greek Particles, 
 Or accurately to retain 
 
 Our Church of England Articles ; 
 Had they compelled your youthful wit 
 
 To puzzle out of Hansard 
 The policies of Fox and Pitt, 
 
 D'you think it would have answered ? 
 
 " Oh, no ! Such treatment of the young, 
 
 Bright images of gladness, 
 Such bondage of their brain and tongue 
 
 Were mere midsummer madness. 
 Then, as from children, from a race 
 
 In its ideal youth. 
 Should we withhold, to our disgrace, 
 
 Pure fiction's purest truth ? " 
 
 " True, Will," I said, " and you possess 
 Such talent oratorical, 
 None could depict their dire distress 
 In hues more metaphorical. 
 
go THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 But must we in contrition for 
 
 The centuries we have sinned 
 Against them, logic quite ignore, 
 
 Cast wisdom to the wind ? 
 O'Connell stated, as a fact. 
 
 When he was in a fix. 
 His Celtic wit through any Act 
 
 Could drive a coach-and-six ; 
 But surely people over here 
 
 To violent invective 
 Prefer attacks more calm, more clear, 
 
 More lucidly connective." 
 
 " No ! no ! you quite mistake the times. 
 
 Cold Sense has had his season. 
 And hot Hallucination climbs 
 
 Into the throne of Reason ; 
 While premiss, argument in chief 
 
 Conclusion categoric, 
 The Demos now would list as lief 
 
 As Double-Dutch or Doric. 
 
 " I do not say I quite approve, 
 But after the enmeshing 
 
 Restraints of syllogism, love. 
 It's really most refreshing. 
 
 To use my industry instead 
 On sentimental strictures, 
 
WILLIAM'S MISSION. 91 
 
 And ply the loose tongue in my head 
 
 On Irish fancy pictures. 
 But now to bed," he gaily cried, 
 
 And soon was calmly dozing, 
 But this last mystic sentence sighed, 
 
 His sleepy eyes unclosing : 
 " The poor, without a single stitch 
 
 Of clothes to know them by. 
 To heaven, far faster than the rich. 
 
 Creep through the camel's eye." 
 
 There, Lady Laura, you know all 
 
 About the parturition 
 Of my dear William's what-d'you-call — 
 
 I mean, dear William's Mission. 
 
92 THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. 
 
 Voz 2)c*1Rational Hntbcm. 
 
 DEDICATED TO THE PARTICULARISTS OF GREAT IRELAND AND 
 
 LITTLE BRITAIN. 
 
 [" Without any disparagement to our own old ' God Save tlie Queen.' " — 
 Mr. Gladstone's Speech at Wrexham, September, 1888.] 
 
 God save our gracious Green, 
 Long live our College Green, 
 
 Gallant and free ! 
 Scatter the Saxon crew, 
 Strike the Red White and Blue, 
 Roderick Vich Alpine Dhu, 
 
 Cushla machree ! 
 
 God save the septs and clans, 
 Bless all the Micks and Dans, 
 
 Bless all the Pats ! 
 Heaven guard the gallant Manx, 
 Heaven bless their herring-banks, 
 Strengthen their triple shanks. 
 
 Prosper their cats ! 
 
 Oh ! may Heav'n's choicest smiles 
 Watch o'er the Channel Isles, 
 And make them French ! 
 
THE DE-NATIONAL ANTHEM. 93 
 
 Save gentle Patrick Ford, 
 Convert the Orange horde, 
 Confound each Tory Lord, 
 Prostrate the Bench ! 
 
 God save Charles Stuart — Parnell, 
 Shield him from shot and shell. 
 
 Powder and ball. 
 Oh ! may no Saxon spy 
 Wipe poor old " Ireland's Eye," 
 God bless the Isle of Skye, — 
 
 Ne'er may it fall ! 
 
 God save the Jute, the Dane, 
 Long may Trelawny reign. 
 
 Long live the Gael ! 
 Long live the Mayor of Cork, 
 Raise high the price of pork, 
 Long may Kings Log and Stork 
 
 Rule Innisfail. 
 
 God save our noble Green, 
 God save the Ghibelline, 
 
 Down with the Guelph : 
 Discrown the Ocean's Queen, 
 Shatter the whole machine. 
 Bless every smithereen, — 
 
 Chiefly Myself 
 
THE BLARNEY BALLADS. 
 
 BY C. L. GRAVES. 
 WITH ILLUSl RATIONS BY G. R. HALKETT. 
 
 Fourth Edition. Fcp. 4to. 55. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " The Blarney Ballads show that Ireland has not run dry of that delicious and 
 extravagant humour which used to be regarded as her greatest gift. . . . Some 
 of them are well worthy even of Goldsmith's genius. . . . True Irish humour 
 in its happiest, richest, and most brilliant form. . . , Mr. Graves has enriched 
 the political literature of our day." — Spectator. 
 
 " Mr. Graves is a dashing and skilful light horseman. The only fault that any 
 one can find with the book is that the exposure of the Gladstonian-Parnellite party 
 is, if anything, too good-humoured." — Saturday Review. 
 
 " These Blarney Ballads will cause laughter and amusement amongst cultivated 
 readers. . . . Mr. Graves's mind is too academic, too gentle, and too charit- 
 able." — Guardian. 
 
 " In spite of a rabid and malignant Unionism, which disfigures many of the very 
 clever skits in this volume of satirical verse, Mr. Graves happily does not succeed 
 altogether in disguising his genuine endowment as a poet." — Bradford Observer. 
 
 " The Gladstone and Parnellite faction has had no more effective critic than the 
 author of the Blarney Ballads. . . . There is in this volume both literary and 
 humorous power, which will have the result of making it a classic." — Globe. 
 
 " The Blarney Ballads are an exceedingly sparkling collection of political pas- 
 quinades. So far as workmanship and literary skill are concerned they deserve 
 the very highest praise. ... It may be said, too, that there is no bitter flavour 
 in any of the satires ; that they are harmless, amusing, and gossamer productions, 
 written for a day and of no serious moment. This is scarcely so. Ridicule is a 
 powerful weapon in politics. The old sense of humour for which Irishmen were 
 famous has largely died out. Want and hunger, narrow anxieties, debasing cares, 
 class hatred, and general discontent are not the materials on which the humorist 
 can sympathetically work. Earnestness is generated, and that quality may run to 
 excess. Here comes the harvest of the observing master of real humour. Mr. 
 Graves has taken the harvest in hand and turned it to good account." — Manchester 
 Guardian. 
 
 " Mr. Graves, in his brilliant collection of Blarney Ballads, shows himself keenly 
 alive to the follies, extravagances, and weaknesses of his countrymen. . . . The 
 volume will rank with the best efforts of satirical verse, while no living writer has 
 equalled its unceasing flow of topical fun. Parodies, as a rule, do not belong to 
 any high order of composition, but certain of these form sparkling and hilarious 
 exceptions. . . . Humour is the prevailing characteristic of all save one of the 
 thirty-four ballads, but it is allied with a sturdy manliness of feeling and shrewd 
 common sense that will commend itself to those who are not carried aWay by the 
 fallacious cry for Home Rule." — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 " Mr. Graves possesses a vast fund of humour, and in this volume he has applied 
 it with keen effect to satirizing the Home Rule agitation. His verses are full of 
 
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS {Continued). 
 
 rollicking fun, which may be enjoyed even by those who differ from his political 
 opinions. That his verses sting will probably be admitted ; but the points he takes 
 up are so comical that they can hardly fail to evoke laughter from any politician." 
 — Scotsman. 
 
 " This volume gives evidence that if the National League has killed Irish 
 humour among its supporters, it has still left some behind for the use of the Union- 
 ists. Mr. Graves writes really exquisitely funny verse. He parodies old Irish 
 songs and ballads, and parodies them well. And the ridicule in which he holds up 
 the Home Rule party is never malicious, though his satire is occasionally severe.'' 
 — Western Morning News. 
 
 " Written as they are in a temper of pure fun, we cannot think that the Blarney 
 Ballads will seriously hurt any susceptibility." — The Irish Times. 
 
 " An excellent Irish humorist. . . . The whole book is clever, and its amaz- 
 ing humour is emphasized by a variety of exquisitely funny illustrations by Mr. G. 
 R. ^3S!iix.\x:'— Glasgow Herald. 
 
 " Mr. Graves has succeeded in giving the public the most unmistakably funny 
 and the most cleverly trenchant possible paraphrases of several famous ballads.'' 
 — Dublin Daily Express. 
 
 " Mr. Graves has a keen eye for politics, an admirable sense of humour, and his 
 faculty of verse is excellent. He shines as a parodist, and in this volume there are 
 specimens of the style of nearly every popular Irish verse-spinner. The book 
 opens with an ode which reads as if fresh from the pen of Father Prout himself. 
 . . . We advise all who wish to be amused as well as instructed in some phases 
 of the Irish Question to get this volume." — Dublin Evening Mail. 
 
 " Full of cleverness and quite devoid of malice." — Belfast Newsletter. 
 
 " No more trenchant criticism in verse of the Parnellite party has appeared for 
 a long time than these ballads." — Northern Whig. 
 
 " Exquisite satire." — Sheffield Daily Telegraph. 
 
 " Mr. Graves is owed a deep debt of gratitude by all Unionist politicians. He 
 has succeeded in throwing a ray of true humour upon the dreary realities and still 
 drearier shams of the Irish question. His Blarney Ballads reach a standard of 
 humorous eloquence far higher than that attained by any political verse-writer of 
 recent years. ... A work full of vigorous humour and genuine satirical 
 power." — Liberal Unionist. 
 
 " Ought to do good service in the Unionist cause. With unfailing humour and 
 plenty of technical skill, Mr. C. L. Graves has put together a series of parodies 
 and original ballads which, in the sum, equal any verse publication ever made in 
 political interests. The ballads are unapproachable." — Yorkshire Post. 
 
 "As a collection of humorous, and, on the whole, not ill-natured satirical pieces, 
 it would be difficult among recent productions of the kind to match Mr. C. L. 
 Graves's Blarney Ballads." — Literary World. 
 
 " Slashing satire and genuine humour." — Somersetshire County Gazette. 
 
 " A bright little volume which ought to have a good run." — The Union. 
 
 " This delightful volume." — Aberdeen Journal. 
 
 " A mixture of satire and fun, shrewd, hard hitting, and good-humoured banter, 
 they are an admirable travesty of the acts and speeches of the Home Rule leaders 
 during the past twelve months. Quite one of the cleverest books of the hour." 
 — Bookseller.