Let your quacks and newspapers be cuttin' their caper
About curin' the vapours, the scratch, and the gout
With their medical potions, their serums and lotions
Upholdin' their notions, they're mighty put out
Who can tell the true physic to all that's pathetic
And pitch to the divil cramp, colic, and spleen?
And you'll know it, I think, if you take a big drink
With your mouth to the brink of a jug of poitín
So stick to the cratur, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys!
Oh, what botheration o' dose in the nation
Can give consolation like poitín, me boys?
No liquid cosmetic to lovers athletic
Or bodies pathetic can give such a bloom
As a sweet by the powers in the gardеn of flowers
Ever gave thеir own bowers such a darlin' perfume
And this liquid so rare, if you willingly share
To be takin' your hair when it's frizzled and dead
Oh, the sod has the merit to yield a true spirit
So strong it'll shake all the hairs from your head
Then stick to the cratur, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys!
O since its perfection, no doctor's direction
Can cleanse the complexion like poitín, me boys!
While a child in me cradle, my nurse with her ladle
Was fillin' my mouth with an ocean of pap
When a drop from her bottle fell into my throttle
I stumbled and capered clean out of her lap
On the floor I lay crawlin' and screamin' and bawlin'
Till me mother and father were called to the fore
All sobbin' and sighin', they feared I was dyin'
But soon found I only was cryin' for more
So stick to the cratur, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys!
Oh Lord, how they'd chuckle, if babes in their truckle
They only could suckle on poitín, me boys!
Through my youthful aggression to times of the 'pression
Me childhood's impression still clung to me mind
And at school or at college, the basis of knowledge
I never could gulp till with whiskey combined
And as older I'm growin', time's ever bestowin'
On Erin's potation a flavor so fine
And howe'er I may lecture on Jove and his nectar
Itself is the only true liquid divine
So stick to the cratur, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys!
Oh Lord, it's the right thing, for cartin' and fighting
They're nowt so exciting as poitín, me boys!
Come guess me this riddle: what beats fifes and fiddles
What's hotterer than mustard and milder than cream?
What best wets your whistle? What's clearer than crystal?
What's sweeter than honey and stronger than steam?
What'll make the lame walk? What'll make the dumb talk
The elixir of life and philosopher's stone?
And what helped Mister Brunnell to build the Thames Tunnel?
Oh, wasn't it poitín from old Inis Eoghain?
So stick to the cratur, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys!
Oh, Lord, it's no wonder if lightnin' and thunder
Were made from the plunder of poitín, me boys!
You maidens pathetic with lovers athletic
For liquid cosmetic you can't beat the drop
With a glow to your cheek, it'll make your heart leap
It'll quiet a stallion and cure an old cob
At the mouth you would drool, be reduced to a fool
You'd kick up your heels and you'd peel to the buff
And then he'd be pathetic while you'd be athletic
If only you'd take a few drop of the stuff
So stick to the cratur, the best thing in nature
For sinkin' your sorrows and raisin' your joys!
For there's nothin' like whiskey to make maidens frisky
It soon separates all the men from the boys
