And far as Leighlin Cross the fields are green and still;
But once I hear the blackbird in Leighlin’s hedges call,
The foolishness is on me, and the wild tears fall!
It is not surprising that William Black should have quoted this poem in one of his volumes, for it is certainly one of the most exquisite and temperamental of folk-songs. The second is wholly different in note, brimming over with the exuberance of the Celtic imagination, and fresh as the breath of spring which inspires it:
’Tis the time o’ the year, if the quicken-bough be staunch,
The green, like a breaker, rolls steady up the branch,
And surges in the spaces, and floods the trunk, and heaves
In little angry spray that is the under-white of leaves;
And from the thorn in companies the foamy petals fall,
And waves of jolly ivy wink along a windy wall.