s o' the
case,
But ignorant wans like me had betther lave it in pace.

Priest, tubbe sure, an' Parson, accordin' to what they say,
The whole matther's plain as a pikestaff an' clear as the day,
An' to hear thim talk of a world beyant, ye'd think at the laste
They'd been dead an' buried half their lives, an' had thramped it
from west to aist;
An' who's for above an' who's for below they've as pat as if they
could tell
The name of every saint in heaven an' every divil in hell.
But cock up the lives of thimselves to be settlin' it all to their
taste--
I sez, and the wife she sez I'm no more nor a haythin baste--

For mighty few o' thim's rael Quality, musha, they're mostly a pack
O' playbians, each wid a tag to his name an' a long black coat to
his back;
An' it's on'y romancin' they are belike; a man must stick be his
trade,
An' _they_ git their livin' by lettin' on they know how wan's
sowl is made.

And in chapel or church they're bound to know somethin' for sure,
good or bad,
Or where'd be the sinse o' their preachin' an' prayers an' hymns an'
howlin' like mad?
So who'd go mindin' o' thim? barrin' women, in coorse, an' wanes,
That believe 'most aught ye tell thim, if they don't understand what
it manes--
Bedad, if it worn't the nathur o' women to want the wit,
Parson and Priest I'm a-thinkin' might shut up their shop an' quit.

But, och, it's lost an' disthracted the crathurs 'ud be without
Their bit of divarsion on Sundays whin all o' thim gits about,
Cluth'rin' an' pluth'rin' together like hins, an' a-roostin' in rows,
An' meetin' their frins an' their neighbors, and wearin' their dacint
clothes.
An' sure it's quare that the clergy can't ever agree to keep
Be tellin' the same thrue story, sin' they know such a won'erful heap;

For many a thing Priest tells ye that Parson sez is a lie,
An' which has a right to be wrong, the divil a much know I,
For all the differ I see 'twixt the pair o' thim 'd fit in a nut:
Wan for the Union, an' wan for the League, an' both o' thim bitther
as sut.
But Misther Pierce, that's a gintleman born, an' has college larnin'
and al