From the plate, in shoals,
When they're put to warm in front of the coals;
And no one with me condoles,
For the butter stains on my beautiful pattern.
But the coals and rolls, and sometimes soles,
Dropp'd from the frying-pan out of the fire.
Are nothing to raise my indignant ire,
Like the Peg! Peg!
Of that horrible man with the wooden leg.
This moral spread from me,
Sing it, ring it, yelp it--
Never a hearthrug be,
That is if you can help it.

_Unknown._

MAVRONE

ONE OF THOSE SAD IRISH POEMS, WITH NOTES

From Arranmore the weary miles I've come;
An' all the way I've heard
A Shrawn[1] that's kep' me silent, speechless, dumb,
Not sayin' any word.
An' was it then the Shrawn of Eire,[2] you'll say,
For him that died the death on Carrisbool?
It was not that; nor was it, by the way,
The Sons of Garnim[3] blitherin' their drool;
Nor was it any Crowdie of the Shee,[4]
Or Itt, or Himm, nor wail of Barryhoo[5]
For Barrywhich that stilled the tongue of me.
'Twas but my own heart cryin' out for you
Magraw![6] Bulleen, shinnanigan, Boru,
Aroon, Machree, Aboo![7]

_Arthur Guiterman._

[Footnote 1: A Shrawn is a pure Gaelic noise, something like a groan,
more like a shriek, and most like a sigh of longing.]

[Footnote 2: Eire was daughter of Carne, King of Connaught. Her lover,
Murdh of the Open Hand, was captured by Greatcoat Mackintosh, King of
Ulster, on the plain of Carrisbool, and made into soup. Eire's grief on
this sad occasion has become proverbial.]

[Footnote 3: Garnim was second cousin to Manannan MacLir. His sons were
always sad about something. There were twenty-two of them, and they
were all unfortunate in love at the same time, just like a chorus at
the opera. "Blitherin' their drool" is about the same as "dreeing their
weird."]

[Footnote 4: The Shee (or "Sidhe," as I should properly spell it if you
were not so ignorant) were, as everybody knows, the regular, stand-pat,
organization fairies of Erin. The Crowdie was their annual convention,
at which they made melancholy sounds. The Itt and Himm were the
irregular, or insurgent, fairies. They _never_ got any offices or
patronage. See MacAlester, _Polity of the Sidhe of West Meath_, page
985.]

[Footnote 5: The Barryhoo is an ancient Celtic bird about the size of a
Mavis, with lavender eyes and a black-crape tail. It continually mourns
its mate (Barrywhich,