LITMIR.BIZ

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      And hold the thought: if Lenin rot the Soviet’s will decay;

      So there he sleeps and calm he keeps his watch and ward for aye.

      Yet if you pass that frame of glass, peer closely at his phiz,

      So stern and firm it mocks the worm, it looks like wax … and is.

      They tell you he’s a mummy — don’t you make the bright mistake:

      They tell you — he’s a dummy; aye, a fiction and a fake.

      This eye beheld the bloody bomb that bashed him on the bean.

      I heard the crash, I saw the flash, yet … there he lies serene.

      And by the roar that rocked the Tomb I ask: how could that be?

      But if you doubt that deed of doom, just go yourself and see.

      You think I’m mad, or drunk, or both.… Well, I don’t care a damn:

      I tell you this: their Lenin is a waxen, showcase SHAM.

      Such was the yarn he handed me,

      Down there in Casey’s Bar,

      That Rooshun bug with the scrambled mug

      From the Land of the Commissar.

      It may be true, I leave it you

      To figger out how far.

      The Ballad of Casey’s Billy-Goat

      You’ve heard of “Casey at The Bat,”

      And “Casey’s Tabble Dote”;

      But now it’s time

      To write the rhyme

      Of “Casey’s Billy-goat.”

      Pat Casey had a billy-goat he gave the name of Shamus,

      Because it was (the neighbours said) a national disgrace.

      And sure enough that animal was eminently famous

      For masticating every rag of laundry round the place.

      From shirts to skirts prodigiously it proved its powers of chewing;

      The question of digestion seemed to matter not at all;

      But you’ll agree, I think with me, its limit of misdoing

      Was reached the day it swallowed Missis Rooney’s ould red shawl.

      Now Missis Annie Rooney was a winsome widow woman,

      And many a bouncing boy had sought to make her change her name;

      And living just across the way ’twas surely only human

      A lonesome man like Casey should be wishfully the same.

      So every Sunday, shaved and shined, he’d make the fine occasion

      To call upon the lady, and she’d take his hat and coat;

      And supping tea it seemed that she might yield to his persuasion,

      But alas! he hadn’t counted on that devastating goat.

      For Shamus loved his master with a deep and dumb devotion,

      And everywhere that Casey went that goat would want to go;

      And though I cannot analyse a quadruped’s emotion,

      They said the baste was jealous, and I reckon it was so.

      For every time that Casey went to call on Missis Rooney,

      Beside the gate the goat would wait with woefulness intense;

      Until one day it chanced that they were fast becoming spooney,

      When Shamus spied that ould red shawl a-flutter on the fence.

      Now Missis Rooney loved that shawl beyond all rhyme or reason,

      And maybe ’twas an heirloom or a cherished souvenir;

      For judging by the way she wore it season after season,

      It might have been as precious as a product of Cashmere.

      So Shamus strolled towards it, and no doubt the colour pleased him,

      For he biffed it and he sniffed it, as most any goat may do;

      Then his melancholy vanished as a sense of hunger seized him,

      And he wagged his tail with rapture as he started in to chew.

      “Begorrah! you’re a daisy,” said the doting Mister Casey

      To the blushing Widow Rooney as they parted at the door.

      “Wid yer tenderness an’ tazin’ sure ye’ve set me heart a blazin’,

      And I dread the day I’ll nivver see me Annie anny more.”

      “Go on now wid yer blarney,” said the widow softly sighing;

      And she went to pull his whiskers, when dismay her bosom smote.…

      Her ould red shawl! ’Twas missin’ where she’d left it bravely drying —

      Then she saw it disappearing — down the neck of Casey’s goat.

      Fiercely flamed her Irish temper. “Look!” says she, “the thavin’ divvle!

      Sure he’s made me shawl his supper. Well, I hope it’s to his taste;

      But excuse me, Mister Casey, if I seem to be oncivil,

      For I’ll nivver wed a man wid such a misbegotten baste.”

      So she slammed the door and left him in a state of consternation,

      And he couldn’t understand it, till he saw that grinning goat;

      Then with eloquence he cussed it, and his final fulmination

      Was a poem of profanity impossible to quote.

      So blasting goats and petticoats, and feeling downright sinful,

      Despairfully he wandered in to Shinnigan’s shebeen;

      And straightway he proceeded to absorb a mighty skinful

      Of the deadliest variety of Shinnigan’s potheen.

      And when he started homeward it was in the early morning,

      But Shamus followed faithfully, a yard behind his back;

      Then Casey slipped and stumbled, and without the slightest warning

      Like a lump of lead he tumbled — right across the railway track.

      And there he lay, serenely, and defied the powers to budge him,

      Reposing like a baby, with his head upon a rail;

      But Shamus seemed unhappy, and from time to time would nudge him,

      Though his prods of protestation were without the least avail.

      Then to that goatish mind, maybe, a sense of fell disaster

      Came stealing like a spectre in the dim and dreary dawn;

      For his bleat of warning blended with the snoring of his master

      In a chorus of calamity — but Casey slumbered on.

      Yet oh, that goat was troubled, for his efforts were redoubled;

      Now he tugged at Casey’s whisker, now he nibbled at his ear;

      Now he shook him by the shoulder, and with fear becoming bolder,

      He bellowed like a foghorn, but the sleeper did not hear.

      Then up and down the railway line he scampered for assistance;

      But anxiously he hurried back and sought with tug and strain

      To pull his master

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