Gas from a Burner*

Ladies and gents, you are here assembled

To hear why earth and heaven trembled

Because of the black and sinister arts

Of an Irish writer in foreign parts.

He sent me a book ten years ago

I read it a hundred times or so,

Backwards and forwards, down and up,

Through both the ends of a telescope.

I printed it all to the very last word

But by the mercy of the Lord

The darkness of my mind was rent

And I saw the writer’s foul intent.

But I owe a duty to Ireland:

I hold her honour in my hand,

This lovely land that always sent

Her writers and artists to banishment

And in a spirit of Irish fun

Betrayed her own leaders, one by one.

’Twas Irish humour, wet and dry,

Flung quicklime into Parnell’s eye;*

’Tis Irish brains that save from doom

The leaky barge of the Bishop of Rome

For everyone knows the Pope can’t belch

Without the consent of Billy Walsh.*

O Ireland my first and only love

Where Christ and Caesar are hand in glove!

O lovely land where the shamrock grows!

(Allow me, ladies, to blow my nose)

To show you for strictures I don’t care a button

I printed the poems of Mountainy Mutton*

And a play* he wrote (you’ve read it, I’m sure)

Where they talk of “bastard”, “bugger” and “whore”.

And a play on the Word and Holy Paul

And some woman’s legs that I can’t recall

Written by Moore,* a genuine gent

That lives on his property’s ten per cent:

I printed mystical books in dozens:

I printed the table book of Cousins*

Though (asking your pardon) as for the verse

’Twould give you a heartburn on your arse:

I printed folklore from North and South

By Gregory of the Golden Mouth:*

I printed poets, sad, silly and solemn:

I printed Patrick What-do-you-Colm:*

I printed the great John Milicent Synge*

Who soars above on an angel’s wing

In the playboy shift* that he pinched as swag

From Maunsel’s* manager’s travelling bag.

But I draw the line at that bloody fellow,

That was over here dressed in Austrian yellow,

Spouting Italian* by the hour

To O’Leary Curtis* and John Wyse Power*

And writing of Dublin, dirty and dear,

In a manner no blackamoor printer could bear.

Shite and onions! Do you think I’ll print

The name of the Wellington Monument,*

Sydney Parade and the Sandymount tram,

Downes’s cakeshop and Williams’s jam?

I’m damned if I do – I’m damned to blazes!

Talk about Irish Names of Places!*

It’s a wonder to me, upon my soul,

He forgot to mention Curly’s Hole.*

No, ladies, my press shall have no share in

So gross a libel on Stepmother Erin.*

I pity the poor – that’s why I took

A red-headed Scotchman to keep my book.

Poor sister Scotland! Her doom is fell;

She cannot find any more Stuarts to sell.

My conscience is fine as Chinese silk:

My heart is as soft as buttermilk.

Colm* can tell you I made a rebate

Of one hundred pounds on the estimate

I gave him for his Irish Review.

I love my country – by herrings I do!

I wish you could see what tears I weep

When I think of the emigrant train and ship.

That’s why I publish far and wide

My quite illegible railway guide.

In the porch of my printing institute

The poor and deserving prostitute

Plays every night at catch-as-catch-can

With her tight-breeched British artilleryman

And the foreigner learns the gift of the gab

From the drunken draggle-tail Dublin drab.

Who was it said: Resist not evil?*

I’ll burn that book, so help me devil.

I’ll sing a psalm as I watch it burn

And the ashes I’ll keep in a one-handled urn.

I’ll penance do with farts and groans

Kneeling upon my marrowbones.

This very next lent I will unbare

My penitent buttocks to the air

And sobbing beside my printing press

My awful sin I will confess.

My Irish foreman from Bannockburn*

Shall dip his right hand in the urn

And sign criss-cross with reverent thumb

Memento homo* upon my bum.

Flushing, September 1912