The night before Larry was stretched

The night before Larry was stretch’d,
The boys they all paid him a visit;
A bit in their sacks, too, they fetch’d—
They sweated their duds till they riz it;
For Larry was always the lad,
When a friend was condemn’d to the squeezer,
But he’d pawn, all the togs that he had,
Just to help the poor boy to a sneezer,
And moisten his gob ’fore he died.

II

‘’Pon my conscience, dear Larry’, says I,
‘I’m sorry to see you in trouble,
And your life’s cheerful noggin run dry,
And yourself going off like its bubble!’
‘Hould your tongue in that matter,’ says he;
‘For the neckcloth I don’t care a button,
And by this time to-morrow you’ll see
Your Larry will be dead as mutton:
All for what? ‘Kase his courage was good!’

III

The boys they came crowding in fast;
They drew their stools close round about him,
Six glims round his coffin they placed
He couldn’t be well waked without ’em,
I ax’d if he was fit to die,
Without having duly repented?
Says Larry, ‘That’s all in my eye,
And all by the clargy invented,
To make a fat bit for themselves.

IV

Then the cards being called for, they play’d,
Till Larry found one of them cheated;
Quick he made a hard rap at his head—
The lad being easily heated,
‘So ye chates me bekase I’m in grief!
O! is that, by the Holy, the rason?
Soon I’ll give you to know you d—d thief!
That you’re cracking your jokes out of sason,
And scuttle your nob with my fist’.

V

Then in came the priest with his book
He spoke him so smooth and so civil;
Larry tipp’d him a Kilmainham look,
And pitch’d his big wig to the devil.
Then raising a little his head,
To get a sweet drop of the bottle,
And pitiful sighing he said,
‘O! the hemp will be soon round my throttle,
And choke my poor windpipe to death!’

VI

So mournful these last words he spoke,
We all vented our tears in a shower;
For my part, I thought my heart broke
To see him cut down like a flower!
On his travels we watch’d him next day,
O, the hangman I thought I could kill him!
Not one word did our poor Larry say,
Nor chang’d till he came to King William;
Och, my dear! then his colour turned white.

VII

When he came to the nubbing-cheat,
He was tack’d up so neat and so pretty;
The rambler jugg’d off from his feet, 9 cart
And he died with his face to the city.
He kick’d too, but that was all pride,
For soon you might see ’twas all over;
And as soon as the nooze was untied,
Then at darkey we waked him in clover,
And sent him to take a ground-sweat.

Dave Allen - The funeral sketch

Some silly fun

Photo Hunt - Time

The subject for this week's Photo Hunt is time. Not being particularly happy with any of my photos of time pieces and still not well enough to head out on a hunt this week I decided to stretch the theme and choose the time when our flagship plant comes into bloom. May is the time that our species tree paeony (Paeonia lutea var. ludlowii) puts up its beautiful yellow flowers. They don't last for long sadly. For the rest of the summer the paeony is a gloriously large foliage plant

On the brighter side...

My Google ranking is back up to 5 again.

Blogger does not know the difference between spam and drivel

I was quite surpised to that I had to complete a word verification request when I posted the baby dropping video.

Apparently Blogger's spam-prevention robots think that the Poor Mouth has characteristics of a spam blog - "irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links...."

I can only imagine that the spam prevention robots also have a critique algorithm that can spot drivel at thirty paces....

Joking aside I am seriously pissed off

Baby dropping

I came across this video this morning. I nearly choked on my brandy I was so surprised. Then I checked if I had gone back in time to the start of April.....

Oscar and a feline hero

Another photo of the previous alpha cat Oscar taken just before he died. Even as an old gent he ruled Ted with an iron paw; Robyn was a very comfortable pillow.

Cats need heroes and if they could choose I'm sure Begemot from the Master and Margarita. Despite his name he certainly looks nothing like a hippo! This week's entry for Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats.

A political post is becoming a rarer and rarer beast on this blog - partly because I am a bit tired of politics at the moment but mainly because there are loads of blogs that do political blogging far better than I do.

I was tagged by Paulie about how I voted today. While I don't care for Livingstone (and never have) I see him as the least worst choice for London. Besides, I am a Labour Party member.....

My second preference went to the Green candidate.

We'll know tomorrow if Livinstone remains as mayor or if we have Johnson

Fifth sentence meme

I was tagged by Roland and Nunyaa to participate in this sentence meme. I did it off my own bat in March, but what the hey, if the tv can show repeats then so can I!

The meme is pretty simple:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

Here goes. The book nearest me is my next planned read. It's Ten Little New Yorkers by Kinky Friedman

"He claimed that they has robbed several convenience stores, which turned out never to have been robbed. Best of all, when the cops told him that the bowling alley had been burglarized the night before the murders, Max confessed to that crime as well. What he didn't know was that the burglars had already been arrested."

Who to tag? I'll come back on that one.

Oleg Basilashvili as Woland

I'm still not feeling well so I've finally gotten around to watching the (subtitled) Russian TV adaptation of The Master and Margarita, one of my favourite novels. I honestly thought it would be unfilmable but I was wrong. It's an excellent production and well worth tracking down. Oleg Basilashvili makes an excellent Woland

Now if only RTE would have a go at the Third Policeman...

THe photo was taken directly from the tv