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A NEW BALLAD CALLED 'JOSEPHINE'S DOWNFALL'

In a neat little town called Dublin where the River Dodder flows
And the Liffey's water strong and green irritates your nose,
A bucko boy was born one day in a palace fine and grand.
I'd sing ye a song about that bloke but, sure, he's not your man.

This song's about another - modest, slow and strong,
Ordinary, tall and tough, thirsty and sometimes wrong -
Handsome as starling and prickly as a rose,
Speech just like a barrowman and a voice just like a crow's.

His mammy wanted a girl, ye see. Mary to be the kid's name
But out came he with a bat and balls! Be Jazus, wasn't that the shame?
The first 3 letters she'd stitched on his frock, she kept them just as they were
And made 3 new ones at the end sewing along with a whurrr.

Marcel was a lovely lad, half-Irish and half French
With sallow skin and shock-red hair each lassie's heart to wrench.
He grew from garsoon to a man and in schooling won the prize
Until one day a maiden fair dawned upon his eyes.

Josephine, fit to be a queen, was a woman who knew her own worth.
She had beauty, buxom, slim and small, nice ankles and good mirth,
Clear eyes, sharp teeth, short nose, long ears, red cheeks without powder put on.
She could've had any bloke from a sargeant major to a Trinity College don.

Marcel was in love with her but she didn't know even his name
Or where he'd come from, where he had been, even if that was the same.
Marcel tried every plan he could but, alas, one day cried "Alors!
Perhaps she'll notice if I go away and get killed in the war!"

So Marcel took the white cockade put it up on his sore head
And left old Dublin's streets and smells and went to France instead.
With Josephine stuck in his brain, he ruthlessly rode 'cross the field
And thrashed Ould Boney's Sons of France and always made 'em yield.

Until one day at Waterloo just before the whole war it was won,
Poor Marcel, Irish with a French name, found the wrong end of a gun.
Who mourns this man with a broken heart and a broken body besides?
Be sure, my man, not Josephine way back on the Liffeyside.