| |
| WHY sits the gentle maiden there, | |
| While surfing billows splash around? | |
| Why doth she southwards wildly stare, | |
| And sing, with such a fearful sound,— | |
| “The Wild Geese 1 fly where others walk; | 5 |
| The Wild Geese do what others talk; | |
| The way is long from France, you know,— | |
| He ’ll come at last when south winds blow.” | |
| |
| O, softly was the maiden nurst | |
| In Castle Connell’s lordly bowers, | 10 |
| Where Skellig’s billows boil and burst, | |
| And, far above, Dunkerron towers: | |
| And she was noble as the hill,— | |
| Yet battle-flags are nobler still; | |
| And she was graceful as the wave, | 15 |
| Yet who would live a tranquil slave? | |
| |
| And, so, her lover went to France, | |
| To serve the foe of Ireland’s foe; | |
| Yet deep he swore, “Whatever chance, | |
| I ’ll come some day when south winds blow.” | 20 |
| And prouder hopes he told beside, | |
| How she should be a prince’s bride, | |
| How Louis would the Wild Geese send, | |
| And Ireland’s weary woes should end. | |
| |
| But tyrants quenched her father’s hearth, | 25 |
| And wrong and absence warped her mind; | |
| The gentle maid, of gentle birth, | |
| Is moaning madly to the wind,— | |
| “He said he ’d come, whate’er betide; | |
| He said I ’d be a happy bride: | 30 |
| O, long the way and hard the foe,— | |
| He ’ll come when south—when south winds blow!” | |
