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Legal & Other Lyrics

By George Outram: Containing a number of new pieces & fifteen illustrations by Edward J. Sullivan

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FRAGMENTS
 
 
 
 
 
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142

FRAGMENTS

THE BARLEY-FEVER

Oh the Barley-fever!
The Barley-fever, the Barley-fever!
It sticks like a burr, or a plough in a fur,
An' it fells a man like a cleaver.
Yer beard turns lang, an' yer head turns bald,
An' yer face grows as white as the lipo' a scald;
Yer tae end is het, and the tither is cauld,
Like a rat wi' its tail in a siever.
Oh the Barley-fever!
The Barley-fever, the Barley-fever!
It gars the best soul grow as toom as a bowl,
An'as flat as the doup o'a weaver.
The Typhus tak's folk that are no very clean,
The Scarlet's content wi'a fat fozy wean;
But the Barley tak's rich, poor, clean, dirty, fat, lean,
The infidel and the believer.

THE MILLER

The Miller's rung did deeds o' weir,
For mortal fray it aye was ready;
The Miller kent neither sloth nor fear
When he fought for king or bonnie leddy!

143

His head was pruif o' stane or steel,
His skin was teugher than bend-leather;
He could pu' against his ain mill-wheel,
Or snap in bits his horse's tether.

THE FULE'S SANG

Leddies they sing leddies' sangs,
An' men they sing men's,
An' fules they sing foolish sangs,
As a' the world kens;
But a' the fule's foolish sangs
That e'er cam' frae the moon,
Were naething to a sang I heard,
To a very foolish tune,
That a fule sang to me.

THE ALEHOUSE

A' human joys come to an end
Some time or ither:
The songsters had nae mair to spend,
An' though the weather
Was maist enough to kill a brute,
Auld Luckie cam' an' drave them out.

144

WOMAN

Like a clear rippling stream
Glancing in the sunny beam
So artless pure does woman seem—
Whistle o'er the lave o't!
She's like (as we in beuks may read)
The daisy blooming on the mead,
A helpless, sweet, bit bonny weed—
Whistle o'er the lave o't!