Och! Oi can't remember roightly
Phwat exactly waz the name
Of the gintleman phwat did it,
But Oi read it all the same—
How he lived insoide a cage, sor
('Twas a moighty strong consarn),
In the middle of the forest,
Monkey language for to larn.
If he larned to spake it roightly
Oi can't say, sor, yis or no;
But he left the cage behoind him,
That for sartin sure Oi know;
For Oi saw it there mesilf, sor—
If ye loike Oi'll tell yez how.
'Tis a moighty cur'ous story
That Oi'm tellin' of yez now.
Oi forget phwy Oi waz sint
With the great explorin' party,
But they axed me,—an' Oi wint.
An' the forests that we passed through,
An' the rivers that we crossed,
Phwat with one thing an' another
Ivery man but me waz lost.
But Oi still kept on explorin',
Walkin' by mesilf for moiles,
An' a-swimmin' over rivers,
Filled with hungry crocodoiles,
Till wan day a big gorilly
Oi saw standin' in the road,
And, phwen Oi saw the cratur,
"Och, bedad!" Oi cried, "Oi'm blow'd."
For Oi took him for a Christian.
Dressed in plant'in leaves and things,
With a bonnet on his head, sor,
An' around his neck some rings
Ov berries from the trees, sor,
An', sez Oi, "It seems to me,
It's most loikely he's a she."
She waz that, an' by the same, sor,
When Oi bowed and raised me hat,
She jist flung her arms around me,
And then down beside me sat.
Oi could see she'd fell in love, sor,
An' Oi came all over hot,
For a big female gorilly
'S worse than any Hottentot.
An' Oi rasoned with her thus, sor:
"Oi can't marry yez, becaze
Oi've wan woife in Ballyhooly,
An' another wan that waz
Me woife up in Killarney;
If Oi marry yez, ye see,
They'll call it bigamy, perhaps,
Or trigonometry."
An' she stayed with me all day,
An' she growled an' showed her teeth, sor,
When Oi tried to get away;
Then she led me to her home, sor—
It waz made insoide the cage,
(That the gintleman Oi told yez ov
Had left there, Oi'll engage.)
"An' ye mane to shut me up in that,
Ye ugly great gorilly?"
Thinks Oi. "Bedad! ye won't, thin.
D'ye take me for a silly?"
So when she opens wide the door,
Oi steps asoide politely;
She walks insoide, Oi shuts the door,
An' fastens it up toightly.