The Sprig of Shillelah

By Edward Lysaght

From The Cabinet of Irish Literature, Volume 2, edited by Charles A. Read.

Oh! love is the soul of a neat Irishman,
He loves all that is lovely, loves all that he can,
With his sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green!
His heart is good-humoured, 'tis honest and sound,
No envy or malice is there to be found;
He courts and he marries, he drinks and he fights,
For love, all for love, for in that he delights,
With his sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green!

Who has e'er had the luck to see Donnybrook Fair?
An Irishman, all in his glory, is there,
With his sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green!
His clothes spick and span new, without e'er a speck,
A neat Barcelona tied round his white neck;
He goes to a tent, and he spends half-a-crown,
He meets with a friend, and for love knocks him down,
With his sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green!

At evening returning, as homeward he goes,
His heart soft with whisky, his head soft with blows
From a sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green!
He meets with his Sheelah, who, frowning a smile,
Cries, "Get ye gone, Pat," yet consents all the while.
To the priest soon they go, and nine months after that,
A baby cries out, "How d'ye do, father Pat,
With your sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green?"

Bless the country, say I, that gave Patrick his birth,
Bless the land of the oak, and its neighbouring earth,
Where grow the shillelah and shamrock so green!
May the sons of the Thames, the Tweed, and the Shannon,
Drub the foes who dare plant on our confines a cannon;
United and happy, at Loyalty's shrine,
May the rose and the thistle long flourish and twine
Round the sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green!

Related articles:—

Edward Lysaght
Kate of Garnavilla
Our Island
Sweet Chloe
Thy Spirit is from Bondage Free
To Henry Grattan
Kitty of Coleraine

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