The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #29286   Message #2516195
Posted By: Jim Dixon
15-Dec-08 - 04:55 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Stick to the Craythur/Humours of Whiskey
Subject: Lyr Add: PADDY'S PANACEA or HUMOURS OF WHISKEY
This text not only has a heretofore unheard verse, but it corrects a few mondegreens, e.g. "an ocean", not "a notion".

From Irish Come-all-ye's By Manus O'Conor (New York: L. Lipkind, 1901)

PADDY'S PANACEA.

1.   Let your quacks in newspapers
    Be cutting their capers,
'Bout curing the vapors, the scurvy, or gout,
    Wid their powders and potions,
    Their balsams and lotions,
Och hone! in their notions they're mightily out.
    Would you know the true physic
    To bother the phthisic.
And pitch to the devil cramp, colic, and spleen?
    You'll find it, I think,
    If you take a big drink,
With your mouth to the brink of a jug of poteen.
    Then stick to the cratur,
    The best thing in natur,
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys.
    Och! whack! botheration!
    No dose in the nation
Can give consolation like whisky, my boys!

2.   Oh, no liquid cosmetic
    For lovers athletic
Or ladies pathetic can give such a bloom;
    And for sweets, by the pow'rs,
    A whole garden of flow'rs
Never gave their own bow'rs such a darling perfume.
    Then the liquor so rare,
    If you're wishing to share,
To be turning your hair when it's grizzled or red;
    Sure the sod has the merit
    To make the true spirit
So strong it'll turn both your hair and your head.
    Then stick to the cratur,
    The best thing in natur,
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys.
    Oh! since 'tis perfection,
    No doctor's direction
Can guard the complexion like whisky, my boys!

3.   Whilst a child in the cradle,
    My nurse wid a ladle
Was filling my mouth wid an ocean of pap,
    When a drop from the bottle
    Slipp'd into my throttle,
I caper'd and wriggled clane out of her lap.
    On the floor I lay sprawling,
    And kicking and bawling,
Till father and mother were both to the fore,
    All sobbing and sighing,
    Conceived I was dying,
But soon found I only was screeching for more.
    Then stick to the cratur,
    The best thing in natur
For sinking vour sorrows and raising your joys.
    Oh, whack, how they'd chuckle
    If babes in their truckle
They only could suckle wid whisky, my boys!

4.   Thro' my youthful progression
    To years of discretion
My childhood's impression still clung to my mind;
    For at school or at college
    The bolus of knowledge
I never could gulp till wid whisky combined.
    And as older I'm growing,
    Time's ever bestowing
On Erin's potation a flavor so fine,
    That howe'er they may lecture
    'Bout Jove and his nectar,
Itself is the only true liquor divine.
    Then stick to the cratur,
    The best thing in natur
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys.
    Oh, whack! 'tis delighting
    For courting or fighting
There's nought so exciting as whisky, my boys!

5.   Let philosophers dabble
    In science, and babble
'Bout Oxygin, Hydrogin, Nitrogin's fame;
    For their gin, to my thinking,
    Is not worth the drinking;
Their labor's all lost, and their learning a drame.
    They may prate by the score
    Of their elements four,
That all things earth, air, fire, and water must be;
    For their rules I don't care,
    For in Ireland, I'll swear,
By St. Pat there's a fifth, and that's whisky, machree!
    Then stick to the cratur,
    The best thing in natur
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys.
    Och! whack! art and science
    Myself bids defiance
To yield in appliance to whisky, my boys!

6.   Come guess me this riddle—
    What bates pipe and fiddle?
What's stronger than mustard and milder than crame?
    What best wets your whistle?
    What's clearer than crystal,
And sweeter than honey, and stronger than stame?
    What'll make the dumb talk?
    What'll make the lame walk?
What's th' Elixir of Life and Philosopher's Stone?
    And what help'd Mr. Brunel
    To dig the Thames Tunnel?
Sure wasn't it the spirit of nate Innishowen!
    Then stick to the cratur,
    The best thing in natur
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys.
    Oh! whack! I'd not wonder
    If lightning and thunder
Was made from the plunder of whisky, my boys!