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From tongue to tongue the rumor flew;
All askt, aghast, “Is’t true? is’t true?”
But none knew whether ’twas fact or fable:
And still the unholy rumor ran,
From Tory woman to Tory man,
Tho’ none to come at the truth was able–
Till, lo! at last, the fact came out,
The horrible fact, beyond all doubt,
That Dan had dined at the Viceroy’s table;
Had flesht his Popish knife and fork
In the heart of the Establisht mutton and pork!

Who can forget the deep sensation
That news produced in this orthodox nation?
Deans, rectors, curates, all agreed,
If Dan was allowed at the Castle to feed,
‘Twas clearly all up with the Protestant creed!
There hadn’t indeed such an apparition
Been heard of in Dublin since that day
When, during the first grand exhibition
Of Don Giovanni, that naughty play,
There appeared, as if raised by necromancers,
An extra devil among the dancers!
Yes–every one saw with fearful thrill
That a devil too much had joined the quadrille;
And sulphur was smelt and the lamps let fall
A grim, green light o’er the ghastly ball,
And the poor sham devils didn’t like it at all;
For they knew from whence the intruder had come,
Tho’ he left, that night, his tail at home.

This fact, we see, is a parallel case
To the dinner that some weeks since took place.
With the difference slight of fiend and man,
It shows what a nest of Popish sinners
That city must be, where the devil and Dan
May thus drop in at quadrilles and dinners!

But mark the end of these foul proceedings,
These demon hops and Popish feedings.
Some comfort ’twill be–to those, at least,
Who’ve studied this awful dinner question–
To know that Dan, on the night of that feast,
Was seized with a dreadful indigestion;
That envoys were sent post-haste to his priest
To come and absolve the suffering sinner,
For eating so much at a heretic dinner;
And some good people were even afraid
That Peel’s old confectioner–still at the trade–
Had poisoned the Papist with orangeade.