Yet pure was the maiden and spotless, I ween, as a star in the blue of the sky.
Next day, by the fountain of Coirre-na-Sheen,
The milkmaid again met the Hunter in Green.
As he kissed her she quietly slipped under his vest
A relic she long had worn next to her breast—
’Twas a relic in sooth the most sacred—a Cross that the holy St. Colomb had blessed.
And lo! in the place of the Hunter in Green
(’Twas all by the fountain of Coirre-na-Sheen),
A brown, withered twig, so elf twisted and dry,
Was all—’twas amazing—the maid could espy!