Dare you dispute, you saucy brute,
And think there's no refelling
Your scurvy lays, and senseless praise
You give to Ballyspellin?
Howe'er you flounce, I here pronounce,
Your medicine is repelling;
Your water's mud, and sours the blood
When drunk at Ballyspellin.
Those pocky drabs, to cure their scabs,
You thither are compelling,
Will back be sent worse than they went,
From nasty Ballyspellin.
Llewellyn why? As well may I
Name honest Doctor Pellin;
So hard sometimes you tug for rhymes,
To bring in Ballyspellin.
No subject fit to try your wit,
When you went colonelling:
But dull intrigues 'twixt jades and teagues,
You met at Ballyspellin.
Our lasses fair, say what you dare,
Who sowins[2] make with shelling,
At Market-hill more beaux can kill,
Than yours at Ballyspellin.
Would I was whipt, when Sheelah stript,
To wash herself our well in,
A bum so white ne'er came in sight
At paltry Ballyspellin.
Your mawkins there smocks hempen wear;
Of Holland not an ell in,
No, not a rag, whate'er your brag,
Is found at Ballyspellin.
But Tom will prate at any rate,
All other nymphs expelling:
Because he gets a few grisettes
At lousy Ballyspellin.
There's bonny Jane, in yonder lane,
Just o'er against the Bell inn;
Where can you meet a lass so sweet,
Round all your Ballyspellin?
We have a girl deserves an earl;
She came from Enniskellin;
So fair, so young, no such among
The belles of Ballyspellin.
How would you stare, to see her there,
The foggy mists dispelling,
That cloud the brows of every blowse
Who lives at Ballyspellin!
Now, as I live, I would not give
A stiver or a skellin,
To towse and kiss the fairest miss
That leaks at Ballyspellin.
Whoe'er will raise such lies as these
Deserves a good cudgelling:
Who falsely boasts of belles and toasts
At dirty Ballyspellin.
My rhymes are gone to all but one,
Which is, our trees are felling;
As proper quite as those you write,
To force in Ballyspellin.
[Footnote 1: This answer, which seems to have been made while Swift was
on a visit at Sir Arthur Acheson's, "in a mere jest and innocent
merriment," was resented by Sheridan as an affront on the lady and
himself, "against all the rules of reason, taste, good nature, judgment,
gratitude, or common manners." See "The History of the Second Solomon,"
"Prose Works," xi, 157. The mutual irritation soon passed, and the Dean
and Sheridan resumed their intimate friendship.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 2: A food much used in Scotland, the north of Ireland, and
other parts. It is made of oatmeal, and sometimes of the shellings of
oats; and known by the names of sowins or flummery.--_F._]