Love
The Irishman and the Lady
From A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895, ed. Edmund Clarence Stedman (1895)
There was a lady liv'd at Leith,
A lady very stylish, man;
And yet, in spite of all her teeth,
She fell in love with an Irishman —
A nasty, ugly Irishman,
A wild, tremendous Irishman,
A tearing, swearing, thumping, bumping, ranting, roaring Irishman.
His face was no ways beautiful,
For with small-pox 't was scarr'd across;
And the shoulders of the ugly dog
Were almost double a yard across.
Oh, the lump of an Irishman,
The whiskey-devouring Irishman,
The great he-rogue with his wonderful brogue — the fighting, rioting Irishman.
One of his eyes was bottle-green,
And the other eye was out, my dear;
And the calves of his wicked-looking legs
Were more than two feet about, my dear.
Oh, the great big Irishman,
The rattling, battling Irishman —
The stamping, ramping, swaggering, staggering, leathering swash of an Irishman.
He took so much of Lundy-foot
That he used to snort and snuffle — O!
And in shape and size the fellow's neck
Was as bad as the neck of a buffalo.
Oh, the horrible Irishman,
The thundering, blundering Irishman —
The slashing, dashing, smashing, lashing, thrashing, hashing Irishman.
His name was a terrible name, indeed,
Being Timothy Thady Mulligan;
And whenever he emptied his tumbler of punch
He'd not rest till he fill'd it full again.
The boozing, bruising Irishman,
The 'toxicated Irishman —
The whiskey, frisky, rummy, gummy, brandy, no dandy Irishman.
This was the lad the lady lov'd,
Like all the girls of quality;
And he broke the skulls of the men of Leith,
Just by the way of jollity.
Oh, the leathering Irishman,
The barbarous, savage Irishman —
The hearts of the maids, and the gentlemen's heads, were bother'd I 'm sure by this Irishman.
Cite this poem
MLA
Maginn, William. “The Irishman and the Lady.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/maginn/0/.
Chicago
Maginn, William. “The Irishman and the Lady.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/maginn/0/.