Sitting on the bridge

   Past the barracks, town and ridge,

At once the spirit seized us

To sing a song that pleased us—

As “The Fifth” were much in rumour;

It was “Whilst I’m in the humour,

   Take me, Paddy, will you now?”

   And a lancer soon drew nigh,

   And his Royal Irish eye

   Said, “Willing, faith, am I,

O, to take you anyhow, dears,

   To take you anyhow.”

   But, lo!—dad walking by,

   Cried, “What, you lightheels!  Fie!

   Is this the way you roam

   And mock the sunset gleam?”

   And he marched us straightway home,

Though we said, “We are only, daddy,

Singing, ‘Will you take me, Paddy?’”

   —Well, we never saw from then

   If we sang there anywhen,

   The soldier dear again,

Except at night in dream-time,

   Except at night in dream.

Perhaps that soldier’s fighting

   In a land that’s far away,

Or he may be idly plighting

   Some foreign hussy gay;

Or perhaps his bones are whiting

   In the wind to their decay! . . .

   Ah!—does he mind him how

   The girls he saw that day

On the bridge, were sitting singing

At the time of curfew-ringing,

“Take me, Paddy; will you now, dear?

   Paddy, will you now?”

Grey’s Bridge.