Saint Patrick
by George Albert Leddy
(1950)
Long, long, ago, in a village in France, lived a young man who had ants in his pants.
He had a fine home, but he’d much rather roam;
he wanted his freedom to sing and to dance.
He oft’ had heard tell, of the Colleens so swell,
who lived in the dells, in that Little Green-Isle.
So he said, “I’ll go there, and have never a care;
I’ll show the wee lassies a bit of my style.
“I’ll stop in Killarney, and pick up the Blarney; and faith, I will talk like a son-of-the-sod.
I’ll laugh and be merry, my smile will be cherry;
the lassies will think me a little glass-god.
“I’ll have me plug-hat, and me little shillelagh;
the stories I’ll tell will be gentle and tame.
I won’t be a Frenchman, no-longer, be’gory;
I’ll be a true Irishman – Paddy be’name.”
So he sat on the stile; he was thinking of kissin’,
the first little maidens who give him the breaks.
When down at his feet, he heard something hissin’ – “Oh, Adam and Eve, it’s a bedlam of snakes!”
The snakes now were frightened; they soon stopped their hissin’.
Said, Mamma Snake, “Papa Snake,
what can it be?”
So taking their young-ones, they took to the water;
and every danged one of ‘em drowned in the sea.
Then the maidens came ‘round, there, they found Little Paddy;
be’garry, he lay on the grass in a faint.
But from that day forward, he’d no use for women;
and that is the reason that – today he’s a Saint!
***