Take, oh take some lads and lasses,
	Take a dreary moonlight glen,
Take a comic spy who passes
	Through a lodge of Ribbon men.

Take a burly Irish squire,
	Take a wretch to work the harm;
Let him set a barn on fire,
	Take a mortgage on a farm.

Take a chain of circumstances
	Implicating innocence,
Take a chambermaid who dances,
	Take unworthy evidence.

Take a secret still, and work it,
	Take a rattling Irish jig;
Take a judge who sits on circuit,
	In his flowing full-dress wig.

Take a lawyer in a fury —
	Evidence that's most unfair,
Take an idiotic jury
	With moustache and flowing hair.

Take a colleen, flirty, jilty,
	Take a crowd in court to yell,
Take a verdict, too, of guilty,
	Take a priest and take a cell.

Take a noble sheriff, bringing
	Pardon, which the convict claims,
Take the village bells a-ringing, —
	Take and pitch 'em in the Thames.