Good lord! what a sight,
  After all their good cheer,
For people to fight
  In the midst of their beer!

They rise from their feast,
  And hot are their brains,
A cubit at least
  The length of their skeans.[7]

What stabs and what cuts,
  What clattering of sticks;
What strokes on the guts,
  What bastings and kicks!

With cudgels of oak,
  Well harden’d in flame,
A hundred heads broke,
  A hundred struck lame.

You churl, I’ll maintain
  My father built Lusk,
The castle of Slane,
  And Carrick Drumrusk: 

The Earl of Kildare,
  And Moynalta his brother,
As great as they are,
  I was nurst by their mother.[8]

Ask that of old madam: 
  She’ll tell you who’s who,
As far up as Adam,
  She knows it is true.

Come down with that beam,
  If cudgels are scarce,
A blow on the weam,
  Or a kick on the a——­se.

[Footnote 1:  A wooden vessel.—­F.]

[Footnote 2:  A covering of linen, worn on the heads of the women.—­F.]

[Footnote 3:  The name of an Irishman.—­F.]

[Footnote 4:  An Irish oath.—­F.]

[Footnote 5:  The name of an Irishwoman.—­F.]

[Footnote 6:  Surname of an Irishwoman.—­F.]

[Footnote 7:  Daggers, or short swords,—­F.]

[Footnote 8:  It is the custom in Ireland to call nurses, foster-mothers; their husbands, foster-fathers; and their children, foster-brothers or foster-sisters; and thus the poorest claim kindred to the rich.—­F.]

THE PROGRESS OF BEAUTY. 1719[1]

When first Diana leaves her bed,
  Vapours and steams her looks disgrace,
A frowzy dirty-colour’d red
  Sits on her cloudy wrinkled face: 

But by degrees, when mounted high,
  Her artificial face appears
Down from her window in the sky,
  Her spots are gone, her visage clears.

’Twixt earthly females and the moon,
  All parallels exactly run;
If Celia should appear too soon,
  Alas, the nymph would be undone!

To see her from her pillow rise,
  All reeking in a cloudy steam,
Crack’d lips, foul teeth, and gummy eyes,
  Poor Strephon! how would he blaspheme!

The soot or powder which was wont
  To make her hair look black as jet,
Falls from her tresses on her front,
  A mingled mass of dirt and sweat.

Three colours, black, and red, and white
  So graceful in their proper place,
Remove them to a different light,
  They form a frightful hideous face: 

For instance, when the lily slips
  Into the precincts of the rose,
And takes possession of the lips,
  Leaving the purple to the nose: 

So Celia went entire to bed,
  All her complexion safe and sound;
But, when she rose, the black and red,
  Though still in sight, had changed their ground.