A DUBLIN SHOPBOY'S WOES or SKINFLINT OF BALLYFAKE
I was born in Dublin City, not far from Mary's Lane,
My mother she was pretty and my father was quite plain;
I was plump and nice and handsome till misfortune made me quake
And fate sent me a shopboy to Skinflint of Ballyfake.
I served my time in Moore street and learned how to weigh
The meal and bran and pollard, the sugar and the tay,
I got my full diploma before I chanced to take
The job with that ould rascal – SKINFLINT OF BALLYFAKE.
That Serpentine slave-driver, he nearly drove me mad,
And his pickaxe of a woman, sure she was twice as bad;
They worked me like a nigger till my knees begun to shake
And I soon was like a skeleton in SKINFLINT'S OF BALLYFAKE.
At five o'clock each morning the villian made me rise
And clean out all the stables, the Byres and the Pig-Styes,
And feed a dozen hungry sows that make me shiver and shake –
The way they roared like lions at SKINFLINT'S OF BALLYFAKE.
A half a score of Skinny Cows I milked each night and morn,
And many a time I cursed the day that ever I was born,
I set and dug potatoes and worked with plough and rake,
And my shirt was often soaked with rain at SKINFLINT'S OF BALLYFAKE.
I'm a worn out poor crayture – I'm in a fearful state,
For buttermilk, salt and prayees were all I ever ate,
The slavery and starvation did my constitution break,
The time I was a shop-boy with SKINFLINT OF BALLYFAKE.