Let your quacks and newspapers be cuttin' their capers
And curing the vapours, the scratch, and the gout
With their medical potions, their serums and lotions
Upholding their notions, they're mighty put out
Who can tell the true physic to all that's pathetic
And pitch to the divil cramp, colic, and spleen?
And you'll know it, I think, if you take a big drink
With your mouth to the brink of a jug of poitín
So stick to the craythur, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys!
Oh, what moderation or dose in the nation
Can give consolation like poitín, me boys?
No liquid cosmetic to lovers athletic
Or bodies pathetic can give such a bloom
As a sweet by the powers in the gard?n of flowers
Ever gave th?ir own bowers such a darling perfume
And this liquid so rare, if you willingly share
To be takin' your hair when it's frizzled and dead
Oh, the sod has the merit to yield a true spirit
So strong it'll shake all the hairs from your head
Then stick to the craythur, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys!
O since its perfection, no doctor's direction
Can cleanse the complexion like poitín, me boys!
While a child in the cradle, my nurse with her ladle
Was filling her mouth with a lotion of "Pep"
When a drop from her bottle fell into my throttle
I capered and scrambled clean out of her lap
On the floor I lay crawlin' and screamin' and bawlin'
Till Father and Mother soon came to the fore,
All sobbing and sighing, they feared I was dying
Soon found I was only a-cryin' for more
So stick to the craythur, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys!
Oh Lord, how they'd chuckle, if babes in their truckle
They only could suckle on poitín, me boys!
Through youthful digressions and times of depression,
My childhood's impression still clung to my mind
And at school or at college, the basis of knowledge
I never could gulp till with whiskey combined
And as older I'm growin', time's ever bestowin'
On Erin's potation a flavor so fine
And howe'er they may lecture on Jove and his nectar
Itself is the only true liquid divine
So stick to the craythur, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys!
Oh Lord, it's the right thing, for courting and fighting
There's naught so exciting as poitín, me boys!
Come guess me this riddle: what beats fifes and fiddles
What's hotter than mustard and milder than cream?
What best wets your whistle? What's clearer than crystal?
What's sweeter than honey and stronger than steam?
What'll make the dumb talk? What'll make the lame walk?
The elixir of life and philosopher's stone?
And what helped Mister Brunel to build the Thames Tunnel?
Wasn't it poitín, me boys, from old Inis Eoghain?
So stick to the craythur, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys!
Oh, Lord, it's no wonder if lightnin' and thunder
Were made from the plunder of poitín, me boys!
