Explore "The Lepracaun or Fairy Shoemaker" by William Allingham on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Little Cowboy, what have you heard, / Up on the lonely rath's green mound? / Only the plaintive yellow bird / Sighing in sultry fields around, / Chary, chary, chary, chee-ee! -- / Only the grasshopper and the bee? -- / 'Tip-tap, rip-rap, / Tick-a-tack-too! / Scarlet leather, sewn together, / This will make a shoe. / Left, right, pull it tight; / Summer days are warm; / Underground in winter, / Laughing at the storm!' / Lay your ear close to the hill. / Do you not catch the tiny clamour, / Busy click of an elfin hammer, / Voice of the Lepracaun singing shrill / As he merrily plies his trade? / He's a span / And a quarter in height. / Get him in sight, hold him tight, / And you're a made / Man!
You watch your cattle the summer day, / Sup on potatoes, sleep in the hay; / How would you like to roll in your carriage, / Look for a duchess's daughter in marriage? / Seize the Shoemaker -- then you may! / 'Big boots a-hunting, / Sandals in the hall, / White for a wedding-feast, / Pink for a ball. / This way, that way, / So we make a shoe; / Getting rich every stitch, / Tick-tack-too!' / Nine-and-ninety treasure-crocks / This keen miser-fairy hath, / Hid in mountains, woods, and rocks, / Ruin and round-tow'r, cave and rath, / And where the cormorants build; / From times of old / Guarded by him; / Each of them fill'd / Full to the brim / With gold!