My young love said to me,
"My mother won't mind
And my father won't slight you
For your lack of kind."
And she stepped away from me
And this she did say:
"It will not be long, love,
Till our wedding day."
As she stepped away from me
And she moved through the fair
And fondly I watched her
Move here and move there
And then she turned homeward
With one star awake
Like the swan in the evening
Moves over the lake.
The people were saying,
No two e'er were wed
But one had a sorrow
That never was said.
And I smiled as she passed
With her goods and her gear,
And that was the last
That I saw of my dear.
Last night she came to me,
My dead love came in.
So softly she came
That her feet made no din
As she laid her hand on me
And this she did say:
"It will not be long, love,
'Til our wedding day."
by Padraic Colum
Artwork by Sir John Lavery
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5 comments:
Wow, that is new to me.
+JMJ+
Oh, it's so sad! :( It reminds me of something G.K. Chesterton wrote in The Ballad of the White Horse:
For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry
And all their songs are sad.
I think that an Irish boyband (either Boyzone or Westlife) also covered this song. It was just an album track, though, and not a single. (Yet can you imagine what the video would have been like, if they had released it?)
alaughland, I'll bet.;)
Yes, Marissa, that is a great quote from Chesterton and so true.
This is one of my favorite songs...I sing this daily while washing the dishes...so sad, and a bit creepy ;-D
There are so many recorded versions of this song, from Loreena McKennitt to Elvis Costello and David Byrne.
Check them out!
We sing it a lot in our family, too, and have for a long time. I used to love Mary O'Hara's rendition.
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