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Title: Paddy's Metamorphosis
Author: Thomas Moore [
More Titles by Moore]
1833.
About fifty years since, in the days of our daddies,
That plan was commenced which the wise now applaud,
Of shipping off Ireland's most turbulent Paddies,
As good raw material for _settlers_, abroad.
Some West-India island, whose name I forget,
Was the region then chosen for this scheme so romantic;
And such the success the first colony met,
That a second, soon after, set sail o'er the Atlantic.
Behold them now safe at the long-lookt-for shore,
Sailing in between banks that the Shannon might greet,
And thinking of friends whom, but two years before,
They had sorrowed to lose, but would soon again meet.
And, hark! from the shore a glad welcome there came--
"Arrah, Paddy from Cork, is it you, my sweet boy?"
While Pat stood astounded, to hear his own name
Thus hailed by black devils, who capered for joy!
Can it possibly be?--half amazement--half doubt,
Pat listens again--rubs his eyes and looks steady;
Then heaves a deep sigh, and in horror yells out,
"Good Lord! only think,--black and curly already!"
Deceived by that well-mimickt brogue in his ears,
Pat read his own doom in these wool-headed figures,
And thought, what a climate, in less than two years,
To turn a whole cargo of Pats into niggers!
MORAL.
'Tis thus,--but alas! by a marvel more true
Than is told in this rival of Ovid's best stories,--
Your Whigs, when in office a short year or two,
By a _lusus naturae_, all turn into Tories.
And thus, when I hear them "strong measures" advise,
Ere the seats that they sit on have time to get steady,
I say, while I listen, with tears in my eyes,
"Good Lord! only think,--black and curly already!"
[The end]
Thomas Moore's poem: Paddy's Metamorphosis
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