The Sprig of Shillelah

O 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 neat 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 Sheulah, who, blushing a smile,
Cries, " Get ye gone, Pat," yet consents all the while.
To the priest soon they go ; and nine months after that,
A fine baby cries, " How do 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 French, who dare plant at 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 !