An Impoverished Irish Peer

Within that parsonage

There is a personage

Who owns a mortgage

     On his Lordship’s land,

On his fine plantations,

Well speculated,

With groves of beeches

     On either hand—

On his ten ton schooner

Upon Loch Gowna,

And the silver birches

     Along the land—

Where the little pebbles

Do sing like trebles

As the waters bubble

     Upon the strand—

On his gateway olden

Of plaster moulded

And his splendid carriage way

     To Castle Grand,

(They’ve been aquatinted

For a book that’s printed

And even wanted

     In far England)

His fine saloons there

Would make you swoon, sir,

And each surrounded

     By a gilded band—

And ’tis there Lord Ashtown

Lord Trimlestown and

Clonmore’s Lord likewise

     Are entertained.

As many flunkeys

As Finnea has donkeys

Are there at all times

     At himself’s command.

Though he doesn’t pay them

They all obey him

And would sure die for him

     If he waved his hand;

Yet if His Lordship

Comes for to worship

At the Holy Table

     To take his stand,

Though humbly kneeling

There’s no fair dealing

And no kind feeling

     In the parson’s hand.

Preaching of Liberty

Also of Charity

In the grand high pulpit

     To see him stand,

You’ld think that personage

In that parsonage

Did own no mortgage

     On His Lordship’s land.