The agent said he’d take the half of all the rint I owed,
  Because he’d be unwilling for to put me on the road: 
  I said, “I thank your honour, and in glory may you be! 
  But that is not the way,” says I, “to set ould Ireland free.”

  They kem an’ put me out of that, and left me there forlorn,
  Beside the empty ruins of the house where I was born: 
  I’m indepindent now myself, and have no work to do,
  Until the day when Ireland is indepindent too.

  “A day will come,” says Blarnigan, “when tyranny’s o’erthrown—­
  Just hould the rint a year or so, and all the land’s your own!”
  Well, ’tis not for the likes of me to question what they say,
  But it’s starved we’ll be before we see that great and glorious day!

  This fighting against tyranny’s a splendid kind of thrade,
  For thim that goes to London for’t, and gets their tickets paid! 
  I’m loafing on the road myself, an’ sorra know I know
  What way I’ll live the winter through, an’ where on earth I’ll go.

  Oh, wanst I was a tinant, an’ I wisht I was one still,
  With my cow an’ pig an’ praties, an’ my cabin on the hill! 
  Now it’s to New York City that I’ll have to cross the sea,
  And all because I held my rint to set the counthry free.

  THE PATRIOTS “POME” (1890)

  Ye shanties so airy of New Tipperary,
    With walls and with floors of the national mud,
  Where the home of the freeman mocks Tyranny’s demon,
    And the landlord and agent are nipped in the bud!

  No Saxon may venture those precincts to enter,
    He is barred from their portals by Liberty’s ban,
  And we boycott each other, each patriot brother,
    And safely deride the Emergency Man.

  Though the comfort exterior, perhaps, is inferior
    To the homes you have left, on a casual view—­
  With its excellent moral no person can quarrel,
    Morality’s always the weapon for you.

  ’Tis a duty you owe to your country’s condition,
    For her, to relinquish your homes and your pelf: 
  Were I placed (as I’m not) in a similar position,
    I have no doubt at all I should do so myself.

  It is dastards alone who are ready to grovel,
    And make themselves footballs for landlords to kick,
  It is better by far to be free in a hovel
    Than to owe for your rent in a palace of brick!

  When the Saxon invader has rows with his tenants,
    It’s absurd to assert that it’s nihil ad rem
  To inflict on yourselves a gratuitous penance,
    For it irritates him and encourages them.

  And it’s always a mark of the National Party—­
    Which their logical shrewdness distinctively shows—­
  That each member is ready, with cheerfulness hearty,
    When his face he would punish, to cut off his nose.

  So we still turn our backs on the gifts of the Saxon—­
    Yes, Freedom itself, if they give it, contemn: 
  We would willingly have it from Parnell and Davitt,
    But we’d sooner be slaves than accept it from them!