| |
| 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 | 5 |
| 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. | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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; | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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— | 30 |
| 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, | 35 |
| 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! | 40 |
| |
