J. C. Squire, ed. A Book of Women’s Verse. 1921.
By Moira ONeill (18641955)The Grand Match
D
High was his step in the jig that he sprung,
He had the looks an’ the sootherin’ tongue—
An’ he wanted a girl wid a fortune.
Fair was the face hid inunder her shawl,
Troth! an’ he liked her the best o’ them all—
But she’d not a traneen to her fortune.
So he married a girl that was counted a catch,
An’ as ugly as need be, the dark little patch—
But that was a trifle, he told her.
She brought him her good-lookin’ cows to his byre,
But far from good-lookin’ she sat by his fire—
An’ paid him that ‘thrifle’ he tould her.
An’ he thought, like a fool, to get round her he’d try;
Wid a smile on her lip an’ a spark in her eye,
She said, ‘How is the woman that owns ye?’
Sure, many ’s the night that he’ll wish himself dead,
For the sake of two eyes in a pretty girl’s head,—
An’ the tongue of the woman that owns him.