With grief and mourning I sit to spin;My Love passed by, and he didn’t come in;He passes by me, both day and night,And carries off my poor heart’s delight. There is a tavern in yonder town,My Love goes there and he spends a crown;He takes a strange girl upon his knee,And never more gives a […]

Gray, gray is Abbey Asaroe,by Belashanny town,It has neither door nor window,the walls are broken down;The carven-stones lie scatter’din briar and nettle-bed;The only feet are those that comeat burial of the dead.A little rocky rivuletruns murmuring to the tide,Singing a song of ancient days,in sorrow, not in pride;The boortree and the lightsome ashacross the portal […]

Adieu to Belashanny!where I was bred and born;Go where I may, I’ll think of you,as sure as night and morn.The kindly spot, the friendly town,where every one is known,And not a face in all the placebut partly seems my own;There’s not a house or window,there’s not a field or hill,But, east or west, in foreign […]

I once was a guest at a Nobleman’s wedding;Fair was the Bride, but she scarce had been kind,And now in our mirth, she had tears nigh the sheddingHer former true lover still runs in her mind. Attired like a minstrel, her former true loverTakes up his harp, and runs over the strings;And there among strangers, […]

Within a budding grove,In April’s ear sang every bird his best,But not a song to pleasure my unrest,Or touch the tears unwept of bitter love;Some spake, methought, with pity, some as if in jest.To every wordOf every birdI listen’d, and replied as it behove. Scream’d Chaffinch, ‘Sweet, sweet, sweet!Pretty lovey, come and meet me here!’‘Chaffinch,’ […]

When the spinning-room was hereCame Three Damsels, clothed in white,With their spindles every night;One and Two and three fair Maidens,Spinning to a pulsing cadence,Singing songs of Elfin-Mere;Till the eleventh hour was toll’d,Then departed through the wold.Years ago, and years ago;And the tall reeds sigh as the wind doth blow. Three white Lilies, calm and clear,And […]

What is it that is gone, we fancied ours?Oh what is lost that never may be told?–We stray all afternoon, and we may grieveUntil the perfect closing of the night.Listen to us, thou gray Autumnal Eve,Whose part is silence. At thy verge the cloudsAre broken into melancholy gold;The waifs of Autumn and the feeble flow’rsGlimmer […]

Four ducks on a pond,A grass-bank beyond,A blue sky of spring,White clouds on the wing;What a little thingTo remember for years–To remember with tears!

Seek up and down, both fair and brown,We’ve purty lasses many, O;But brown or fair, one girl most rare,The Flow’r o’ Belashanny, O.As straight is she as poplar-tree(Tho’ not as aisy shaken, O,)And walks so proud among the crowd,For queen she might be taken, O.From top to toe, where’er you go,The loveliest girl of any, […]

The Abbot of Innisfallenawoke ere dawn of day;Under the dewy green leaveswent he forth to pray.The lake around his islandlay smooth and dark and deep,And wrapt in a misty stillnessthe mountains were all asleep.Low kneel’d the Abbot Cormacwhen the dawn was dim and gray;The prayers of his holy officehe faithfully ‘gan say.Low kneel’d the Abbot […]

By the shore, a plot of groundClips a ruin’d chapel round,Buttress’d with a grassy mound;Where Day and Night and Day go by,And bring no touch of human sound. Washing of the lonely seas,Shaking of the guardian trees,Piping of the salted breeze;Day and Night and Day go byTo the endless tune of these. Or when, as […]

A wild west Coast, a little Town,Where little Folk go up and down,Tides flow and winds blow:Night and Tempest and the Sea,Human Will and Human Fate:What is little, what is great?Howsoe’er the answer be,Let me sing of what I know.