| |
| MELLOW the moonlight to shine is beginning, | |
| Close by the window young Eileen is spinning; | |
| Bent over the fire her blind grandmother, sitting, | |
| Is crooning, and moaning, and drowsily knitting:— | |
| “Eileen, achora, I hear someone tapping.” | 5 |
| “’Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping.” | |
| “Eily, I surely hear somebody sighing.” | |
| “’Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind dying.” | |
| Merrily, cheerily, noiselessly whirring, | |
| Swings the wheel, spins the wheel, while the foot’s stirring; | 10 |
| Sprightly, and brightly, and airily ringing | |
| Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing. | |
| |
| “What’s that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?” | |
| “’Tis the little birds chirping the holly-bush under.” | |
| “What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on, | 15 |
| And singing, all wrong, that old song of ‘The Coolun’?” | |
| There’s a form at the casement—the form of her true love— | |
| And he whispers, with face bent, “I’m waiting for you, love; | |
| Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly, | |
| We’ll rove in the grove, while the moon’s shining brightly.” | 20 |
| Merrily, cheerily, noiselessly whirring, | |
| Swings the wheel, spins the wheel, while the foot’s stirring; | |
| Sprightly, and brightly, and airily ringing | |
| Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing. | |
| |
| The maid shakes her head, on her lips lays her fingers, | 25 |
| Steals up from her seat—longs to go, and yet lingers; | |
| A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother, | |
| Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the other, | |
| Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round, | |
| Slowly and lowly is heard not the reel’s sound; | 30 |
| Noiseless and light to the lattice above her | |
| The maid steps—then leaps to the arms of her lover. | |
| Slower—and slower—and slower the wheel swings; | |
| Lower—and lower—and lower the reel rings; | |
| Ere the reel and the wheel stopped their ringing and moving, | 35 |
| Through the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving. | |
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