Irish verse

Nora Hopper Chesson

By the short cut to Rosses a fairy girl I met;

I was taken by her beauty as a fish is in a net.

The fern uncurled to look at her, so very fair was she,

With her hair as bright as seaweed new-drawn from out the sea.

 

By the short cut to Rosses ('t was on the first of May)

I heard the fairies piping, and they piped my heart away;

They piped till I was mad with joy, but when I was alone

I found my heart was piped away and in my breast a stone

 

By the short cut to Rosses 'tis I'll go never more

Lest I be robbed of soul by her that stole my heart before,

Lest she take my soul and crush it like a dead leaf in her hand,

For the short cut to Rosses is the way to Fairyland.

 

W.B. Yeats

Had I the Heavens'embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet:

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Rosa Mulholland

The silent bird is hid in the boughs

The scythe is hid in the corn,

The lazy oxen wink and drowse

The grateful sheep are shorn;

Redder and redder burns the rose,

The lily was ne'er so pale,

Stiller and stiller the river flows

Along the path to the vale.

 

A little door is hid in the boughs,

A face is hiding within;

When birds are silent and oxen drowse

Why should a maiden spin?

Slower and slower turns the wheel,

The face turns red and pale,

Brighter and brighter the looks that steal

Along the path to the vale.