| Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900. |
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| Sir Samuel Ferguson. 1810–1886 |
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713. Cashel of Munster
FROM THE IRISH |
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| I'D wed you without herds, without money or rich array, | |
| And I'd wed you on a dewy morn at day-dawn gray; | |
| My bitter woe it is, love, that we are not far away | |
| In Cashel town, tho' the bare deal board were our marriage-bed this day! | |
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| O fair maid, remember the green hill-side, | 5 |
| Remember how I hunted about the valleys wide; | |
| Time now has worn me; my locks are turn'd to gray; | |
| The year is scarce and I am poor—but send me not, love, away! | |
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| O deem not my blood is of base strain, my girl; | |
| O think not my birth was as the birth of a churl; | 10 |
| Marry me and prove me, and say soon you will | |
| That noble blood is written on my right side still. | |
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| My purse holds no red gold, no coin of the silver white; | |
| No herds are mine to drive through the long twilight; | |
| But the pretty girl that would take me, all bare tho' I be and lone, | 15 |
| O, I'd take her with me kindly to the county Tyrone! | |
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| O my girl, I can see 'tis in trouble you are; | |
| And O my girl, I see 'tis your people's reproach you bear! | |
| —I am a girl in trouble for his sake with whom I fly, | |
| And, O, may no other maiden know such reproach as I! | 20 |
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