<h2><SPAN name="chap58"></SPAN>LEPRECHAUNS AND CLURICAUNS</h2>
<p class="poem">
Over where the Irish hedges<br/>
Are with blossoms white as snow,<br/>
Over where the limestone ledges<br/>
Through the soft green grasses show—<br/>
There the fairies may be seen<br/>
In their jackets of red and green,<br/>
Leprechauns and cluricauns,<br/>
And the other ones, I ween.<br/>
<br/>
And, bedad, it is a wonder<br/>
To behold the way they act.<br/>
They’re the lads that seldom blunder,<br/>
Wise and wary, that’s the fact.<br/>
You may hold them with your eye;<br/>
Look away and off they fly;<br/>
Leprechauns and cluricauns,<br/>
Bedad, but they are sly!<br/>
<br/>
They have heaps of golden treasure<br/>
Hid away within the ground,<br/>
Where they spend their days in leisure,<br/>
And where fairy joys abound;<br/>
But to mortals not a guinea<br/>
Will they give-no, not a penny.<br/>
Leprechauns and cluricauns,<br/>
Their gold is seldom found.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe of a morning early<br/>
As you pass a lonely rath,<br/>
You may see a little curly—<br/>
Headed fairy in your path.<br/>
He’ll be working at a shoe,<br/>
But he’ll have his eye on you—<br/>
Leprechauns and cluricauns,<br/>
They know just what to do.<br/>
<br/>
Visions of a life of riches<br/>
Surely will before you flash;<br/>
(You’ll no longer dig the ditches,<br/>
You’ll be well supplied with cash.)<br/>
And you’ll seize the little man,<br/>
And you’ll hold him—if you can;<br/>
Leprechauns and cluricauns,<br/>
’Tis they’re the slipp’ry clan!<br/></p>
<p class="left">
DENIS A. MCCARTHY</p>
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