A Broadside: No. 4 Fourth Year
Title
A Broadside: No. 4 Fourth Year
Subject
Ireland
Dun Emer Press
Cuala Press
A Broadside
Irish Literary Revival
The Gaelic Revival
Description
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY E. C. YEATS AT THE CUALA PRESS, CHURCHTOWN, DUNDRUM, COUNTY DUBLIN. SUBSCRIPTION TWELVE SHILLINGS A YEAR POST FREE.
300 copies only.
300 copies only.
The woodcut on page [3] has caption: "An Old Slave". Signed by Jack B. Yeats.
Creator
E. C. Yeats
Jack B. Yeats
Wolf T. MacGowan
Publisher
Cuala Press
Date
September, 1911
Text
THE PETITION OF TOM DERMODY TO THE THREE FATES IN COUNCIL SITTING
Right Rigorous and so forth! humbled
By cares and mourning, tost and tumbled
Before your Ladyships, Tom Fool,
Knowing above the rest of you rule,
Most lamentably sets his case
With a bold heart and saucy face.
Sans shoes or stockings, coat or breeches
You see him now, most mighty witches,
His body worn like an old farthing,
The angry spirit just a-parting,
His credit rotten, and his purse
As empty as a cobbler's curse;
His Poems, too, unsold - that's worse!
In short, between confounded crosses,
Patrons all vext and former losses,
Sure as a gun he cannot fail,
Next week to warble in a jail,
Which jail to folks not very sanguine,
Is just as good or worse than hanging;
Though in the first vain hopes flatter,
But Hope's quite strangled by the latter.
Thus is a poor rhyming rascal treated,
Fairly, or rather foully cheated
Of all the goods from wit accruing,
(Wit that synonomous with ruin.)
Then take it in your head-piece, ladies,
To set up a poor Bard whose Trade is,
Low fallen enough in conscience; pity
The maker of this magic ditty;
And turn your wheel once more in haste,
To see him on the summit placed.
For well you wot that woes ('od rot 'em)
Have long since stretched him at the bottom,
Where he who erst fine lyrics gabbled
With mire and filth was sorely dabbled,
So pitifully pelted, that
He looks like any drowned rat.
O Justice, Justice, take his part,
O lift him on thy lofty cart
Magnific Fame! And let fat Plenty
Marry one Poet out of Twenty.
O Irlanda, Irlanda,
Irlanda in the Sea,
Would I were in Irlanda
North of Innis Magee!
North of dirty Carnlough,
And north of Drumnasole,
And north of Knock-na-Carry
Where the Dun doth roll.
Wolf T. MacGowan.
Right Rigorous and so forth! humbled
By cares and mourning, tost and tumbled
Before your Ladyships, Tom Fool,
Knowing above the rest of you rule,
Most lamentably sets his case
With a bold heart and saucy face.
Sans shoes or stockings, coat or breeches
You see him now, most mighty witches,
His body worn like an old farthing,
The angry spirit just a-parting,
His credit rotten, and his purse
As empty as a cobbler's curse;
His Poems, too, unsold - that's worse!
In short, between confounded crosses,
Patrons all vext and former losses,
Sure as a gun he cannot fail,
Next week to warble in a jail,
Which jail to folks not very sanguine,
Is just as good or worse than hanging;
Though in the first vain hopes flatter,
But Hope's quite strangled by the latter.
Thus is a poor rhyming rascal treated,
Fairly, or rather foully cheated
Of all the goods from wit accruing,
(Wit that synonomous with ruin.)
Then take it in your head-piece, ladies,
To set up a poor Bard whose Trade is,
Low fallen enough in conscience; pity
The maker of this magic ditty;
And turn your wheel once more in haste,
To see him on the summit placed.
For well you wot that woes ('od rot 'em)
Have long since stretched him at the bottom,
Where he who erst fine lyrics gabbled
With mire and filth was sorely dabbled,
So pitifully pelted, that
He looks like any drowned rat.
O Justice, Justice, take his part,
O lift him on thy lofty cart
Magnific Fame! And let fat Plenty
Marry one Poet out of Twenty.
O Irlanda, Irlanda,
Irlanda in the Sea,
Would I were in Irlanda
North of Innis Magee!
North of dirty Carnlough,
And north of Drumnasole,
And north of Knock-na-Carry
Where the Dun doth roll.
Wolf T. MacGowan.
Original Format
Broadside
Collection
Citation
E. C. Yeats, Jack B. Yeats, and Wolf T. MacGowan, “A Broadside: No. 4 Fourth Year,” Linda Lear Center Digital Collections and Exhibitions, accessed April 26, 2024, https://lc-digital.conncoll.edu/items/show/1386.