"Hands up!" they shouted "Damn you! ye scaymin' divil's limb; We've come to scotch the serpent, we know as Wicklow Jim," Said they, "At last we have you for oaths you gave to men, An' swore them for your purpose, to bethray, an' sell them then!" He didn't make an answer, but he thried to whip a knife, From collar of his cota--it was there to guard his life-- He hadn't time to dhraw it, for a crack of shots! an' soon, A pool of blood, was spurtin' from the corpse of John McKune. [Illustration] [Illustration: I'LL GO FOR A SOJER.] "O WHERE is my Johnnie acushla?" says she, He left me last night, an' "Maggie" says he, "It's meself an' yerself mam that couldn't agree, Be dang but I'll go for a sojer!" He took all the cash that I had in the till, I followed him round to the butt of the hill, "Go back, or yerself is the first that I'll kill!" Says he, "Whin I'm gone for a sojer!" I hung to his neck, an' I axed him to stay, Ye might as well ax for the night to be day; But wringin' his neck from me, shoutin' "Hooray!" Says he "Whoo! I'll go for a sojer!" I set the dog afther him, thought that he'd stick In the tail of his coat, he was up to the thrick; For he turned on his heel, an' he skelped him a lick, Of the stick, "I am off for a sojer!" "O whisht! arrah there, look he's comin'!" she cried, As far in the distance, her Jack she espied, With Corporal Quirk on the march by his side, He's comin' back home with a sojer. When Johnnie came near enough to her to spake, "O Johnnie Avourneen!" said she, "did ye take The shillin'?" "No faith, for I'm too wide awake, I only wint off for a sojer." [Decoration] ODE HERE! I DYED away the grey, from my sparsy head of hair, I buttered up the fur upon my tile, I darned the ventilators in my garments here, and there, And with my go-to-meeting stick, and smile, I went to see a widow, I had courted long ago; She had just been to the Probate for a pile! Said she, "You are a person that I really do not know" Her tone was rather cutting, like a file! A serious alteration in her style; I knew her when a maiden without guile, She wouldn't even loan me from her pile, A widow's mite; it agitates my bile! [Illustration: THE SMUGGLER'S FATE] A Seaside Idyll this; To teach how oft amiss, Doth fall the fate of men who would be free: It makes me cry heigho, In minor cadence low, When I do mind me Of the fate of three, To shun hymenial perils, And tired of mashing girls, A smuggler's cave, they took beside the sea, And formed a reckless crew, That swallowed their own brew, Of whiskey, punch and coffee, beer and tea;