Tim Lyons, "Humours of Whiskey" from Green Linnet Records: The Twentieth Anniversary Collection (The Last Angry Irishman)
Commentary: Poitín, Anglicized as poteen or potcheen.
"Let your quacks and newspapers being cutting their capers
And curing the vapors, the scratch, and the gout,
With their medical potions, their salves, and their 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
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 crate the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
O what botheration, no dose in the nation
Can give consolation like poitín, me boys!
"No liquid cosmetic, to lovers athletic
Or ladies pathetic can give such a bloom
As the sweet by the powers in the garden of flowers
Ever gave their own bowers such a darling perfume,
And this liquid so rare if you willingly share
To be taking your hair when it's grizzled and dead
Oh, the sod has the merit to yield the true spirit
So strong it will shake all the hairs from your head.
"Then stick to the crate of the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys,
O since its perfection no doctor's direction
Can cleanse the complexion like poitín me boys!…
"Come guess me this riddle: what beats pipes and fiddle?
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 will make the lame walk?
What's the elixir of life and Philosopher's Stone?
And what helped Mr. Brunnel to build the Thames Tunnel,
Wasn't it poitín, my boys, from old Inishowen?
"So stick to the crate of the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys.
O Lord knows I wonder if lightning and thunder
Weren't made from the plunder of poitín me boys!"
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