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