The Humors of Whiskey

Let your quacks and newspapers come cuttin' their capers
For curin' the vapors, the scratch and the gout
With their salves and their lotions, their pills and their potions
Upholdin' the notion they're mighty put out
Who can tell the true physic to all that's pathetic
And pitch to the dibble, 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

Stick to the creature, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys
What botheration, no dose in the nation
Can give consolation like whiskey me boys

No liquid cosmetic to lovers athletic
Or ladies pathetic can give such a bloom
As sweet, by the powers, in the garden of flowers
E'er gave their own bowers such darlin' perfume
And a liquid so rare, if you willingly share
To be taken your hair when it's frizzled and dead
The sod has the merit to yield the true spirit
So strong it'll shake all the hairs from your head

Stick to the creature, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys
Since its perfection, no doctor's direction
Can cleanse the complexion like poitín, me boys

As a child in my cradle, my nurse with her ladle
Was fillin' my mouth with the notion of pap
When a drop from her bottle fell into my throttle
I stumbled and capered clean out of her lap
On the floor I lay crawlin' and screamin' and bawlin
Till mother and father were called to the fore
Sobbin' and sighin' they feared I was dyin'
But soon found I only was cryin' for more

Stick to the creature, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys
Lord how I'd chuckle if babes and their truckle
Could only be suckled on whiskey 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 'til with whiskey combined
And as older I'm growin', time's ever bestowin
On Erin's potation a flavor so fine
Howe'er they may lecture on Jove and his nectar
Itself is the only liquid divine

Stick to the creature, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys
Lord it's the right thing for courtin' and fightin'
There's naught so excitin' as 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
Sweeter than honey and stronger than steam
What'll make the dumb talk, what'll make the lame walk
What's the elixir of life and philosopher's stone
What helped Mr. Brunnell to dig the Thames Tunnel
Sure wasn't it whiskey from old Inishowen

Stick to the creature, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys
Lord it's no wonder if lightning and thunder
Was made from the plunder of whiskey me boys

Stick to the creature, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys
Lord it's no wonder if lightning and thunder
Was made from the plunder of whiskey me boys