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Hands off! don’t poach on our preserves!
Howe’er this be, the Irish cranium
Whose logic method’s somewhat flighty,
Translated thus the dictum weighty:
“If landlords raise your rent a mite, ye
Must pay th’ excess in lead or brain ’em.”
A simple truth—so very simple—
Like all great truths of true religion:
Lords and caretakers are all widgeon
Created for your shot to dimple—
That’s their sole end of being, to act as
The target of the meek and holy.
Then take your rifles and go practice,
Ye disinherited and lowly!
That it took root and quite invaded
That neural rudiment or plexus
Th’ Iberian brain and-slums pervaded
From Colorado’s swamps to Texas,
But such a gospel truth exacting
Much shot and powder guns and training
’Gainst its own preachers now. reacting
Drained off the dimes once Romeward raining.
Into the depths of Land-league pockets,
Who the same give and take game playing
With shot and daggers that with rockets
The firework preachers found so paying,
Took all the wind out of the lateen-
Rigged sails, and left the sharks who sat in
The Petrine Skiff, becalmed and hollow,
Upon the weltering brine to wallow,
A Nemesis not quite unmerited
For eating up the disinherited
