Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Massachusetts Poets. 1922.

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!