“Ah, sir, in America, where I’m told the Irish are once more a rich and powerful people, our ancient nobility would have their bards, with rale harps and voices for singing. But in this poor country it’s only a mettyphorical existence a bard can have. Whin I spoke the word ‘song,’ my intintion was allegorical. Sure, ’tis drivin’ you from the house I’d be after doing, were I to sing in the ginuine maning of the word. But I have here some small verses which I composed this day, while I was waitin’ in the pig-market, that you might not be indisposed to listen to, and to accept.” O’Daly drew from his waistcoat pocket a sheet of soiled and crumpled paper forthwith, on which some lines had been scrawled in pencil. Smoothing this out upon the table, he donned a pair of big, hornrimmed spectacles, and proceeded to decipher and slowly read out the following, the while the others ate and, marveling much, listened: I. “What do the gulls scream as they wheel Along Dunmanus’ broken shore? What do the west winds, keening shrill, Call to each othir for evermore? From Muirisc’s reeds, from Goleen’s weeds, From Gabriel’s summit, Skull’s low lawn, The echoes answer, through their tears, ‘O’Mahony’s gone! O’Mahony’s gone!’ II. “But now the sunburst brightens all, The clouds are lifted, waters gleam, Long pain forgotten, glad tears fall, At waking from this evil dream. The cawing rooks, the singing brooks, The zephyr’s sighs, the bee’s soft hum, All tell the tale of our delight-- O’Mahony’s come! O’Mahony’s come! III. “O’Mahony of the white-foamed coast, Of Kinalmeaky’s nut-brown plains, Lord of Rosbrin, proud Raithlean’s boast, Who over the waves and the sea-mist reigns. Let Clancy quake! O’Driscoll shake! The O’Casey hide his head in fear! While Saxons flee across the sea-- O’Mahony’s here! O’Mahony’s here!” The bard finished his reading with a trembling voice, and looked at his auditors earnestly through moistened eyes. The excitement had brought a dim flush of color upon his leathery cheeks where the blue-black line of close shaving ended. “It’s to be sung to the chune of ‘The West’s Awake!’” he said at last, with diffidence. “You did that all with your own jack-knife, eh?” remarked the The O’Mahony, nodding in approbation. “Well, sir, it’s darned good!” “Then you’re plased with it, sir?” asked the poet. “‘Pleased!’ Why, man, if I’d known they felt that way about it, I’d have come years ago. ‘Pleased?’ Why it’s downright po’try.”