Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/463

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GAELIC SPEECH.

445

Next day he found his pain removed,
His tool-chest likewise gone;
"'Tis plain I cannot plane," he 'plained,
"For planes now I have none."

To quench his grief and taste relief
He drank a pint of gin;
His wife she thought a screw was loose
When he came hammering in.

"You're on the beer," she quick exclaimed;
"Not so," said Mr. Wood;
"But being in so great a strait,
I've got a little screwed.

"You know I have no compass now,
Though compassed round with care;
My square is also stolen away,
And hence I'm off the square.

"I ne'er again shall see my saw,
Nor mend your chairs and stools;
O, may the thief be braced to bits
Who chiselled all my tools.

"I am, indeed, a hard-ruled man,
If I ain't ruined, axe me;
The thought that I can't cramp a frame
Cramps all my frame and racks me.

"And now I sit upon the bench,
And on my panels gaze;
No rays of hope within me rise
Another pint to raise.

"To dream of being a gentleman
I must henceforth forbear;
For if I cannot drive a nail,
I cannot drive a pair."

Gaelic Speech; or "Auld Lang Syne" Done Up in Tartan.

Should Gaelic speech be e'er forgot,
And never brocht to min',
For she'll be spoke in Paradise
In the days of auld langsyne.