And I send my song. I’ll not see her awake—
I’m too old a bird to uncage now!
“Silver’s but lead in exchange for songs,
But take it and spend it.”
“We will. And may we meet your honor’s like
Every day’s end.”
“A tune is more lasting than the voice of the birds.”
“A song is more lasting than the riches of the world.”
Note. The last stanza in the first ballad sung is a fragment of an old country song; the rest of it, with the other two ballads, is invented. But they are all in the convention of songs still sung by strolling ballad-singers. I have written the common word for pasture-field “paurk” so as not to give a wrong association: it might be written “park,” as Burns, using the word in the same sense, writes it. “Paurk” or “park” is Gaelic for pasture field, and is always used in Irish country speech in that sense. The two last lines spoken are translations of a Gaelic phrase which has been used by Dr. Douglas Hyde as a motto for his collection of Connacht love songs. P. C.