  A NEW VERSION FROM THE ORIGINAL IRISH. "Ecco ridente," &c. I. There's a spot by that lake, sirs, Where echoes were born, Where one Paddy Blake, sirs, Was walking one morn With a great curiosity big in his mind! Says he, "Mrs. Blake Doesn't trate me of late In the fashion she did When I first call'd her Kate: She's crusty and surly,— My cabin's the dhiaoul, My pigs and my poultry Are all cheek by jowl; But what is the cause, from the Acho I'll find." (Spoken.) So up he goes bouldly to the Acho, and says, "The top o' the mornin' t'ye, Misther or Missus Acho, for divil a know I know whether ye wear petticoats or breeches." "Neither," says the Acho in Irish. "Now, that being the case," says Paddy, turnin' sharp 'pon the Acho, d'ye see, "ye can tell me the stark-naked truth." "'Troth, an' ye may say that, with yir own purty mouth," says the Acho. "Well, thin," says Paddy agin, "what the divil's come over Mrs. Blake of late?" "Potcheen!" says the Acho. "Oh! (shouting) by the pow'rs of Moll Kelly," says Paddy, "I thought as mich:— "It wasn't for nothin' the taypot was hid, Though I guess'd what was in it, by smelling the lid!" II. There's another suspicion Comes over my mind, That with all this contrition And pray'rs, and that kind, Ould Father Mahony's a wag in his way. When a station, he says, Will be held at my house, I must go my ways, Or be mute as a mouse. For him turkey and bacon Is pull'd from the shelf; Not so much as a cake on The coals for myself: But what all this manes, why, the Acho will say. (Spoken.) Up he goes agin to the Acho, and says, "Tell me, aff ye plase, what is't brings ould Father Mahony so everlastingly to my country seat in the bog of Bally Keeran?" "Mrs. Blake!" says the Acho. "Oh! hannimandhiaoul!" says Paddy, "I thought as mich—the thief o' the world—I thought as mich. Oh! tundher-a-nouns! "I'll go home an' bate her, until my heart's sore, Then give her the key of the street evermore!" W. |
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