Miscellaneous writings of the late Dr. Maginn :: :: University of Virginia Library

MSS. No. I. To Mrs. Kitty Flanagan, comforts her on the absence of her husband, Jerry Flanagan, mate of the Jolly Jupiter, and drops a hint about a light dragoon.

Why do cry, my sweet Mrs. Flanagan,
When you will soon have your own dear man again,
Whom the first wind will bring home from the Delaware,
Brimful of sovereigns, and such other yellow ware?

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He's driven in to some port to the west of us,
(A thing that might happen, dear, to the best of us,)
Where he is sighing, sobbing, and chattering,
Night and day long, of his own dear Catherine:
Although his landlady, one Mrs. Gallagher,
Wants him to quit you, the rogue, and to follow her.
She tells him the tale of the wife of old Potiphar,
(Relating a fact that will ne'er be forgot of her,)
Who, from a feeling malignant and sulte-ry,
Had Joseph near hanged for eschewing adultery:
And from this basest, this vilest of women, he
Gets Mr. Hunt's smutty story of Rimini,

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By which, 'tis plain, she hopes to a surety,
Soon to corrupt his natural purity;
But he resists her arts and her flattery,
Deaf and determined, just as a battery.
But there's a sergeant, one Patrick Hennessy,
Keep away, Kitty, from all such men as he,
Though he's so smart, that he's always employed, as
Rough-rider to the old Marquis of Drogheda's,
Though there are few so brawny and big, my dear,
Or far better at dancing a jig, my dear,
Close down your windows when he comes capering,
Shut both your doors and your ears to his vapouring,
Mind not the songs or sighs of this Hannibal,
But, looking at him, cross as a Cannibal,
Cry, “Come be off as light as a tailor, man,
I will be true to my own dear sailorman.”