The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill.
The lark from her gray wing the bright dew is shaking—
Oh, Kathleen mavourneen,—what? lingering still?
Oh, hast thou forgotten, this day we must sever,
Oh, hast thou forgotten, this day we must part?”
He sang it through—the sad, hopeless longing of a weary heart. “It may be for years, and it may be forever.” I glanced at the barber, and saw him still with the open razor and the brush in his hands, while the others stood about with heads bowed as they listened. And at the end of the song my friend started another:
“Come back to Erin, mavourneen, mavourneen,
Come back, Aroon, to the land of thy birth.
Come with the shamrocks of springtime, mavourneen,
And its Killarney shall ring with thy mirth!”