While The Billy BoilsSearchThe presbyt’ry has gone to pot since this housekeeper came;She’s up-to-date and stylish, but the place is not the sameSince Death’s hard summons robbed me of the sterling old machineThat wore out in my service here—my faithful Josephine.
Poor Josephine she knew me well! And, faith, she ought to know!For since the Bishop sent me here, some thirty years ago,My one and only manager without a break she’d been—I never had a word against poor, honest Josephine.
She pottered round the place herself for thirty years and more.This new one has a tuckeen now, to sweep and mind the door,And entertain with parish chat each gossiping votheen.She’d have no tuckeen round the place, would trusted Josephine.
They tell me this one’s up-to-date—too up-to-date for me.I tremble at her polished floors, and wondrous cookery.The old ways are the best ways for the old man still, I ween:I’ve heard his Lordship praise the stews of simple Josephine.
My sitting-room my sanctum was—a castle all my own—But this one with her fussy ways can’t leave the place alone.Her fingers ache to “tidy up,” and when she’s “extra clean”I sit a stranger in my chair, and sigh for Josephine.
It seems this table’s “awful,” and “it drives her to despair.”Perhaps so; but there’s method in what seems confusion there;I know where every paper is, each book, and magazine;That jumbled pile was sacred in the eyes of Josephine.
The things I want are near at hand, convenient to my call;While those I seldom use, you see, go quickly to the wall;I wish she’d learn to let things be, as they have ever been—Just make the bed, and sweep the floor, the same as Josephine.
No sthreel at all was Josephine, and quick she was to noteMy native country’s colour coming quietly through my coat;I teased her that she should condemn “The wearing of the green”—She couldn’t see a joke at all, poor, solid, Josephine!
She used to hide my battered hats; my old birretas, too,Just when I had them broken in, would disappear from view.I wondered where my garments went, until by chance I’d seenA tramp in full pontificals—subscribed by Josephine!
I mind the time the Bishop came, one day in early spring.We took him round to see the schools, and hear the children sing;I smelt just like a motor car, of sickening benzine,And noticed, too, the furtive glance of anxious Josephine.
She watched his Lordship’s portly form pass grandly o’er the mat;His Majesty the Curate, with his gloves and shiny hat;I had an old biretta on which better days had seen;She quietly slipped it off my head. Ah, poor old Josephine!
It often strikes me now she’s gone, how well she filled the bill;Her features just a shade severe; her age canonical.In fashions of her mother’s day she went her way serene;The wasteful ways of worldly ones disgusted Josephine.
She knew this place from A to Z; she knew the parish through;And those who never went to Mass, and those who did, she knew:The hours arranged for this and that; she had the whole routine,And oftentimes, to set me straight, I summoned Josephine.
She thought I couldn’t make mistakes, not even if I tried;She felt the Holy Ghost would send a mitre ere I died;She lay in wait for wagging tongues; and faith, her own was keen—God help the one who dared complain in front of Josephine.
The people called her “Curate;” yes, and “Bishop,” too, I hear;They even called her “parish priest”—that’s when she wasn’t near,They told me that she’d ruin the Church—too long with me she’d been—But only death could give the sack to poor old Josephine.
She’s in her lonely grave to-night beneath the staring stars,And haply hears the Requiem among the Coolibahs.I marked the grand old Irish faith that met the closing scene,And heard the beat of angels’ wings that came for Josephine.
How quickly has the time rolled by! She’s dead—now let me see—She’s dead twelve months. To-morrow is her anniversary;Now who’s the saint to-morrow? A semi—Hedwig, Queen.I’ll wear the black. And may God rest the soul of Josephine.