In days which now are but a riddle,
When William Murphy played the fiddle
So merrily, long, long ago,
To trip of "light fantastic toe."
Fond were you of the rod and line
When sport and profit did combine
In other days, when mighty Bass
And Pickerel lay upon the grass
Beside you, as with practised hand,
You hauled the scaly kings to land
Night-lines and gill-nets, may they be
Accurst--have ruined you and me!
And left us nought but "tommy cods"
As trophies for our idle rods.
Who is he with such pompous air--
Such magic curl of scented hair,
With glass stuck tightly o'er one eye
To scan the common passer by,
While every air betokens well
The presence of a "howling swell?"
'Tis Henry Howard Burgess, O!
To him Dundreary's self were slow.
And Thomas Burgess, too, was here,
A swell, though not quite so severe.
And the two Johnston's, born twins,
As like each other as two pins,
Clerks in the Ordnance Office were
And surely a most proper pair.
John Grant, too, who quite early came,
A constable of ancient fame,