| |
| OF Leinster, famed for maidens fair, | |
| Bright Lucy was the grace; | |
| Nor e’er did Liffy’s limpid stream | |
| Reflect so sweet a face: | |
| Till luckless love, and pining care, | 5 |
| Impaired her rosy hue, | |
| Her coral lips, and damask cheeks, | |
| And eyes of glossy blue. | |
| |
| Oh! have you seen a lily pale, | |
| When beating rains descend? | 10 |
| So drooped the slow-consuming maid, | |
| Her life now near its end. | |
| By Lucy warned, of flattering swains | |
| Take heed, ye easy fair: | |
| Of vengeance due to broken vows, | 15 |
| Ye perjured swains, beware. | |
| |
| Three times, all in the dead of night, | |
| A bell was heard to ring; | |
| And shrieking at her window thrice, | |
| The raven flapped his wing. | 20 |
| Too well the love-lorn maiden knew | |
| The solemn boding sound: | |
| And thus, in dying words, bespoke | |
| The virgins weeping round: | |
| |
| ‘I hear a voice, you cannot hear, | 25 |
| Which says, I must not stay; | |
| I see a hand, you cannot see, | |
| Which beckons me away. | |
| By a false heart, and broken vows, | |
| In early youth I die: | 30 |
| Was I to blame, because his bride | |
| Was thrice as rich as I? | |
| |
| ‘Ah, Colin! give her not thy vows, | |
| Vows due to me alone: | |
| Nor thou, fond maid, receive his kiss, | 35 |
| Nor think him all thy own. | |
| To-morrow, in the church to wed, | |
| Impatient, both prepare! | |
| But know, fond maid, and know, false man, | |
| That Lucy will be there! | 40 |
| |
| ‘Then bear my corse, my comrades, bear, | |
| This bridegroom blithe to meet, | |
| He in his wedding-trim so gay, | |
| I in my winding-sheet.’ | |
| She spoke, she died, her corse was borne, | 45 |
| The bridegroom blithe to meet, | |
| He in his wedding-trim so gay, | |
| She in her winding-sheet. | |
| |
| Then what were perjured Colin’s thoughts? | |
| How were these nuptials kept? | 50 |
| The bridesmen flocked round Lucy dead, | |
| And all the village wept. | |
| Confusion, shame, remorse, despair, | |
| At once his bosom swell: | |
| The damps of death bedewed his brow, | 55 |
| He shook, he groaned, he fell. | |
| |
| From the vain bride, ah, bride no more! | |
| The varying crimson fled, | |
| When, stretched before her rival’s corse, | |
| She saw her husband dead. | 60 |
| Then to his Lucy’s new-made grave, | |
| Conveyed by trembling swains, | |
| One mould with her, beneath one sod, | |
| For ever he remains. | |
| |
| Oft at this grave, the constant hind | 65 |
| And plighted maid are seen; | |
| With garlands gay, and true-love knots | |
| They deck the sacred green; | |
| But swain forsworn, whoe’er thou art, | |
| This hallowed spot forbear; | 70 |
| Remember Colin’s dreadful fate, | |
| And fear to meet him there. | |
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