Sprig of shilela, &c./The Sprig of Shilela and Shamrock So Green

THE SPRIG OF SHILELA AND SHAMROCK SO GREEN.

O Love is the saul of a neat Irishman,
He loves all the lovely, loves all that he can,
With his Sprig of Shilela and Shamrock so green.
His heart is good-humour’d,’tis honest and sound,
No malice or hatred is there to be found;
He courts and h marries, he drinks and he fights,
’Tis love all forgove for in that he delights,
With his Sprig of Shilela and Shamrock so green.

Who has e’er had the luck to see Denny-brook fair,
An Irishman all in his glory is there,
With his Sprig, &c.
With clothes spick and span new, without e’er a speck,
A neat Barcelona tied round his neat neck;
He goes to a tent and he spends hi!f-a-crown,
He meets with his friend, and for love knocks him down,
With his Sprig, &c.

At ev’ning returning, as homeward he goes.
His heart soft with whisky, his head soft with blows,
From a Sprig, &c.
He meets with his Shilela, who blushing a smile.
Cries, get you gone, Pat, yet consents all the while.
To the priest they soon go, and nine months after that,
A fine babby cries, how d’ye do, father Pat,
With your Sprig, &c.

Bless the country, says I, that gave Patrick his birth,
Bless the land of the oak and its neighbouring earth,
Where grows the Shilela, &c.
May the sons of the Thames, the Tweed, and the Shannon,
Drub the foes who dare plant in our confines a cannon,
United and happy at loyalty’s shrine,
May the Rose and the Thistle long flourish and twine
Round the Sprig of Shilela and Shamrock so green.