[Editor: This poem by E.J. Dempsey was published in The Bulletin Reciter, 1901.]
The Fall of Patrick Dooley.
Lasht Christmas, begorra !
Oi know to my sorra,
A gosht from the ind of the wurrld kem along ;
An’ the same was O’Hagan,
That out-an’-out pagan,
As wild as the Divil an’ ten toimes as shtrong.
Jist thin Oi was sober ;
For, back in October,
I ’d taken the plidge — done the timperance thrick —
An’ so, to be sayrious,
Oi ’d dhrunk bottles various
Of cowld soda-wather wid niver a shtick.
Shure, I was a sample
An’ shinin’ example
Of tay-total vartue an’ timperance thruth ;
Till flamin’ O’Hagan,
That ragin’ ould pagan,
Made me dhrunk as a lord widout wettin’ a tooth.
His gosht kem in blinkin’,
An’ cursin’, an’ winkin’;
Sez Oi, “Ye’ve been dhrinkin’, O’Hagan, Oi fear ?”
Says he, “Parthrick Dooley,
Yer shpakin’ untrooley,
Oi haven’t touched liquor this twinty-five year !
“Shure, you know, Oi expired
Before Oi got tired
Of atin’ an’ dhrinkin’ of whisky my fill ;
The shtuff got so well in —
It ’s thruth that Oi ’m tellin’—
The gosht of that whisky goes round wid me still !
“It’s moighty provokin’
To spind your loife soakin’
Up whisky that lives whin ye ’re gobbled by Death;
’T is dishdainful they trate me,
No gosht cares to mate me,
An’ the Divil himsilf got dead dhrunk on my breath !”
One whiff then he gave me,
An’, if ye ’ll belave me,
Oi was dead to the wurrld, Oi was dhrunk as a posht ;
And now, iver afther,
They call me, wid laughther,
“The man who got dhrunk on the breath of a gosht !”
They taunt an’ they jeer me,
An’ say they found near me
Some tin impty bottles — but yet Oi do say
’T was the breath of O’Hagan,
That shcoundrelly pagan,
That made me so dhrunk upon lasht Christmas Day !
E. J. Dempsey.
Source:
A.G. Stephens (editor). The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from “The Bulletin” [1880-1901], The Bulletin Newspaper Company, Sydney, 1902 [first published 1901], pages 132-134
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