Oh, then, Maura, is it parting I am from you,
My thousand loves for ever on earth?
I who would plant the potatoes for you,
I whom you needed to cut the turf!
I who would buy you the young milch cow,
I who would croon you to sleep with a rann,
I who at eve would lie down with your leave—
What ever would you do without your man?
O Maura, keep me with you a little, little longer, if you can!
"There's many an old man down in the town,
And no manner of use or abuse in him more;
There's little Dominic, wizened and brown,
Begging his scraps from door to door;
And his wife and children famished with cold
Trying to find him his bit of bread;
O Death, 'tis your right to take the old—
And they say that Dominic's wrong in his head—
O Death, take Dominic with you, for 'tis badly I'm wanted here," I said.
"It's a fine man you are, but you stand in my way,
I'd be thankful you'd let me get on to my fields;"
He raised his arm, it was cold as clay,
And strong as the flail the thresher wields.
I tried to push him out of my road,
But his bony fingers clutched me tight;
"I am your comrade henceforth," he said,
"Another man tends your sheep to-night;
Hurry home, Shawn, I call for you again before the morning's light."
[MUIRNEEN OF THE FAIR HAIR]
If my longing I could get,
I would take her in a net,
And would ease my aching sorrow for a while;
And though all men say me nay
I shall wed her on a day,
She my darling of the sweet and sunny smile.
I have finished with the plough,
And must sow my seedlands now,
I must labour in the face of wind and weather;
But in rain and frost and snow,
Always as I come and go,
I am thinking she and I should be together.
O love my heart finds fair!
It is little that you care
Though I perish in the blackness of my grief;
But may you never tread
God's Heaven overhead,
If you scorn me and refuse my love relief.