But the nights av Saint Patherick’s Days in Athlone
Folks dare not go by the ould graveyard alone,
For they say that McCarty sits on his tombstone
And plays this sad tune on a phantom trombone: 

  “The harp that wance through Tara’s halls
    The sowl av music shed,
  Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls
    As if that sowl were dead.” 
  And all who’ve heard the lonesome keens
    That that grim ghost has blown,
  Know well by Tara’s harp he means
    That batthered ould trombone.

* * * * *

SUSAN VAN DOOZEN

I’ll write, for I’m witty, a popular ditty,
  To bring to me shekels and fame,
And the only right way one may write one to-day
  Is to give it some Irish girl’s name. 
There’s “Rosy O’Grady,” that dear “steady lady,”
  And sweet “Annie Rooney” and such,
But mine shall be nearly original, really,
  For Susan Van Doozen is Dutch.

O Susan Van Doozen! the girl of my choos’n’,
  You stick in my bosom like glue;
While this you’re perusin’, remember I’m mus’n’,
  Sweet Susan Van Doozen, on you. 
So don’t be refus’n’ my offer, and bruis’n’
  A heart that is willing to woo;
And please be excus’n’, not cold and refus’n’,—­
  O Susan Van Doozen, please do!

Now through it I’ll scatter—­a quite easy matter—­
  Some lines that we all of us know,
How “The neighbors all cry as she passes them by,
  ‘There’s Susan, the pride of the row!’”
And something like “daisy” and “setting me crazy,”
 —­These lines the dear public would miss—­
Then chuck a “sweetheart” in, and “never to part” in,
  And end with a chorus like this: 

  O Susan Van Doozen! before I’d be los’n’
    One glance from your eyes of sky-blue,
  I vow I’d quit us’n’ tobacco and booz’n’,
    (That word is not nice, it is true). 
  I wear out my shoes, ‘n’ I’m los’n’ my roos’n’
    My reason, I should say, dear Sue,—­
  So please change your views ‘n’ become my own Susan,
    O Susan Van Doozen, please do!

* * * * *

SISTER SIMMONS

Almost every other evening jest as reg’lar as the clock
When we’re settin’ down ter supper, wife and I, there comes a knock
An’ a high-pitched voice, remarking’, “Don’t get up; it’s me, yer know”;
An’ our mercury drops from “summer” down ter “twenty-five below,”
An’ our cup of bliss turns sudden inter wormwood mixed with gall,
Fer we know it’s Sister Simmons come ter make her “reg’lar call.”

In she comes an’ takes the rocker.  Thinks she’ll slip her bunnit off,
But she’ll keep her shawl on, coz she’s ‘fraid of addin’ ter her cough. 
No, she won’t set down ter supper.  Tea? well, yes, a half er cup. 
Her dyspepsy’s been so lately, seems as if she should give up;
An’, ‘tween rheumatiz an’ as’ma, she’s jest worn ter skin an’ bone. 
It’s a good thing that she told us,—­by her looks we’d never known.