A PASTORAL BALLAD.
BY JOHN BULL.
Dublin, March 12. 1827.—Friday, after the arrival of the packet bringing
the account of the defeat of the Catholic Question, in the House of Commons,
orders were sent to the Pigeon House to forward 5,000,000 rounds
of musket-ball cartridge to the different garrisons round the country.
—Freeman's Journal.
I have found out a gift for my Erin,
A gift that will surely content her;—
Sweet pledge of a love so endearing!
Five millions of bullets I've sent her.
She ask'd me for Freedom and Right,
But ill she her wants understood;—
Ball cartridges, morning and night,
Is a dose that will do her more good.
There is hardly a day of our lives
But we read, in some amiable trials,
How husbands make love to their wives
Through the medium of hemp and of phials.
One thinks, with his mistress or mate
A good halter is sure to agree—
That love-knot which, early and late,
I have tried, my dear Erin, on thee.
While another, whom Hymen has bless'd
With a wife that is not over placid,
Consigns the dear charmer to rest,
With a dose of the best Prussic acid.
Thus, Erin! my love do I show—
Thus quiet thee, mate of my bed!
And, as poison and hemp are too slow,
Do thy business with bullets instead.
Should thy faith in my medicine be shaken,
Ask R---d---n, that mildest of saints;
He'll tell thee, lead, inwardly taken,
Alone can remove thy complaints;—
That, blest as thou art in thy lot,
Nothing's wanted to make it more pleasant
But being hang'd, tortur'd, and shot,
Much oft'ner than thou art at present.
Even W*ll---t*n's self hath averr'd
Thou art yet but half sabred and hung,
And I lov'd him the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from his tongue.
So take the five millions of pills,
Dear partner, I herewith inclose;
'Tis the cure that all quacks for thy ills,
From Cromwell to Eld---n, propose.
And you, ye brave bullets that go,
How I wish that, before you set out,
The Devil of the Freischutz could know
The good work you are going about.
For he'd charm ye, in spite of your lead,
Into such supernatural wit,
That you'd all of you know, as you sped,
Where a bullet of sense ought to hit.
