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Bog-land Studies

By J. Barlow: 3rd ed
Barlow, Jane (1857?-1917)

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TH' OULD MASTER
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WALLED OUT
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LAST TIME AT M'GURK'S
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BY THE BOG-HOLE
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PAST PRAYING FOR OR, THE SOUPER'S WIDOW
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MISS HONOR'S WEDDING
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A CURLEW'S CALL

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IV

Priest, tubbe sure, an' Parson, accordin' to what they say,
The whole matther's plain as a pikestaff an' clear as the day,
An' to hear thim talk of a world beyant ye'd think at the laste
They'd been dead an' buried half their lives, an' had thramped it from west to aist;
51

An' who's for above, an' who's for below they've as pat as if they could tell
The name of every saint in Heaven an' every divil in Hell.
But cock up the likes of thimselves to be settlin' it all to their taste—
I sez, and the wife she sez I'm no more nor a haythin baste—
For mighty few o' thim's rael Quality, musha, they're mostly a pack
O' playbians, each wid a tag to his name an' a long black coat to his back;
An' it's on'y romancin' they are belike; a man must stick be his trade,
An' they git their livin' by lettin' on they know how wan's sowl is made.
And in chapel or church they're bound to know somethin' for sure, good or bad,
Or where'd be the sinse o' their preachin' an' prayers an' hymns an' howlin' like mad?
52

So who'd go mindin' o' thim? barrin' women, in coorse, an' wanes,
That believe 'most aught ye tell thim, if they don't understand what it manes—
Bedad, if it worn't the nathur o' women to want the wit,
Parson an' Priest I'm a-thinkin' might shut up their shop an' quit.
But, och, it's lost an' disthracted the crathurs 'ud be widout
Their bit o' divarsion on Sundays whin all o' thim gits about,
Cluth'rin' an' plutth'rin' together like hins, an' a- roostin' in rows,
An' meetin' their frins an' their neighbours, an' wearin' their dacint clothes.
An' sure it's quare that the clergy can't ever agree to keep
Be tellin' the same thrue story, sin' they know such a won'erful heap;
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For many a thing Priest tells ye that Parson sez is a lie,
An' which has a right to be wrong, the divil a much know I,
For all the differ I see 'twixt the pair o' thim'd fit in a nut:
Wan for the Union, an' wan for the League, an' both o' thim bitther as sut. But Misther Pierce, that's a gintleman born, an' has college larnin' and all,
There he was starin' no wiser than me where the shadow stands like a wall.
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