You watch your cattle the summer day,Sup on potatoes, sleep in the hay;How would you like to roll in your carriage.Look for a duchess's daughter in marriage?Seize the shoemaker - then you may!"Big boots a-hunting,Sandles in the hall,White for a wedding feast,Pink for a ball.This way, that way,So we make a shoe;Getting rich every stitch,Tick-tack-too!"Nine-and-ninety teasure-crocksThis keen miser-fairy hath,Hid in mountains, woods and rocks,Ruin and round tow'r, cave and rath,And where the cormorants build;From times of oldGuarded by him;Each of them fill'dFull to the brimWith gold!
I caught him at work one day myself,In the castle ditch, where foxglove grows,A wrinkled, wizen'd and bearded Elf,Spectacles stuck on his pointy nose,Silver buckles to his hose,Leather apron - shoe in his lap -"Rip-rap, rip-tap,Tick-tack-too!(A grasshoper on my cap!Away the moth flew!)Buskins for a fairy prince,Brogues for his son,Pay me well, pay me well,When the job is done!The rogue was mine, beyond a doubt.I stared at him, he stared at me;"Servant Sir!" "Humph!" says he,And pull'd a snuff box out.He took a long pinch, look'd better pleased,The queer little Lepracaun;Offered the box with a whimsical grace,Pouf! he flung the dust in my face,And, while I sneezed,Was gone!
- William Allingham -