Irish Songs

The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there 
Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer : 
May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hair, 
And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year. 

That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will see 
On virtue's path, and a voice that would rasp the dead, 
Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me, 
Threw me out of the house on the back of my head !
 
If I asked her master he'd give me a cask a day ; 
But she, with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange ! 
May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten, and may 
The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange. 

Nights of music, nights of loving,
Lost too soon, remembered long.
When we went by moonlight roving,
Hearts all love and lips all song.
When this faithful lute recorded
All my spirit felt to thee;
And that smile the song rewarded,
Worth whole years of fame to me!
Nights of song, and nights of splendor,
Fill'd with joys too sweet to last.
Joys that, like the starlight tender,
While they shone, no shadow cast,
Thought all other happy hours
From my fading mem'ry fly,
OF the starlight of those bowers,
Not a beam, a leaf shall die!