Digital Tradition Mirror

Finding of Moses

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Finding of Moses
(Zozimus?)

On Agypt's bank, contagious to the Nile
The old Pharaoh's daughter went out to swim in style
She took her dip and she come unto the land
And for to dry her royal pelt, she ran along the strand
A bullrush tripped her, whereupon she saw
A smiling babby in a wad of straw
She picked him up and say's she in accents mild
"Thunderin' Jayzus girl, how, but which of yis owns the child!"

She picked him up and she gave a little grin
For she and Moses were standing in their skin
"Bedad now" says she, "it was someone very rude
Left the little babby be the river in his nude!"
She took him to her ould lad, sitting on the throne
"Da says she will you give the boy a home"
"Well Bejaysus" says the King," but I often took in worse
Go me darling daughter and get the child a nurse."

A big, blackamoor woman, standing in the crew
Cried out "Ye royal savage, sure, what's that to do with you
Your royal ladies is to meek and mild
To beget dishonestly this darling little child"
"Well right then" says Pharaoh, "I'll search every nook
From the Phoenix Park, all the way to Donnybrook
And when I catch a hoult of the bastard's father
I'll kick him from the Nile right sown to the Dodder"

So they sent a bellman to the market square
To see if he could find a skivvy there
But the only one that they could find
Was the little young one that left the child behind
She went up to king Pharaoh's, a stranger mar-a-ya
Never letting on that she was the baby's ma
And so Little Moses, he got his Mammy back
Shows that coincidence is a nut to crack.

A Frank Harte special. Attributed to a blind beggar nicknamed Zosimus.
MR
apr97

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!