| The First. My great-grandfather spoke to Edmund Burke |
| In Grattan’s house. |
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| The Second. My great-
grandfather shared |
| A pot-house bench with Oliver Goldsmith once. |
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| The Third. My great-grandfather’s
father talked of music, |
| Drank tar-water with the Bishop of Cloyne. |
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| The Fourth. But mine saw Stella once. |
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| The Fifth. Whence came our thought? |
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| The Sixth. From four great minds that hated Whiggery. |
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| The
Fifth. Burke was a Whig. |
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| The Sixth. Whether they knew or not, |
| Goldsmith and Burke, Swift and the
Bishop of Cloyne |
| All hated Whiggery; but what is Whiggery? |
| A levelling, rancorous, rational sort of mind |
| That
never looked out of the eye of a saint |
| Or out of drunkard’s eye. |
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| The Seventh. All’s Whiggery now, |
| But
we old men are massed against the world. |
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| The First. American colonies, Ireland, France and India |
| Harried,
and Burke’s great melody against it. |
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| The Second. Oliver Goldsmith sang what he had seen, |
| Roads
full of beggars, cattle in the fields, |
| But never saw the trefoil stained with blood, |
| The avenging leaf
those fields raised up against it. |
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| The Fourth. The tomb of Swift wears it away. |
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| The Third. A voice |
| Soft
as the rustle of a reed from Cloyne |
| That gathers volume; now a thunder-clap. |
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| The Sixth. What schooling
had these four? |
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| The Seventh. They walked the roads |
| Mimicking what they heard, as children mimic; |
| They
understood that wisdom comes of beggary. |
