 | Songs of Killarney |  |
133
THE MAY OF THE YEAR.
O show me a season as mild and as merry
As the May of the year in the Kingdom of Kerry.
As the May of the year, as the May of the year,
When the eyes of Atlantic, as crystal-clear
As Heaven's own blue, are beaming on you;
And the sun moves slowly for love of the flowers
—Such flowers, with the wild bees all a-hum,—
And delights to linger above the bowers
—Those very bowers, so dark and dumb,
And sorrowful stripped for O, how long?
But now how green! how full of song!—
And the good sun gazes, with golden gaze,
On the evergreens of our woodland ways:
A gaze so glad—arbutus and holly
Forget their wintry melancholy
In diamond laughter, and he delays
The happy heedless course of the hours,
And looks with a lingering love-look down
To do his duty
To Irish beauty;
And looks again, with a royal frown,
Steadfast and stern, our boys to burn,
To burn our boys, to a braver brown.
As the May of the year in the Kingdom of Kerry.
As the May of the year, as the May of the year,
When the eyes of Atlantic, as crystal-clear
As Heaven's own blue, are beaming on you;
And the sun moves slowly for love of the flowers
—Such flowers, with the wild bees all a-hum,—
And delights to linger above the bowers
—Those very bowers, so dark and dumb,
134
But now how green! how full of song!—
And the good sun gazes, with golden gaze,
On the evergreens of our woodland ways:
A gaze so glad—arbutus and holly
Forget their wintry melancholy
In diamond laughter, and he delays
The happy heedless course of the hours,
And looks with a lingering love-look down
To do his duty
To Irish beauty;
And looks again, with a royal frown,
Steadfast and stern, our boys to burn,
To burn our boys, to a braver brown.
So the good sun his course delays,
For he loves to lengthen our sweet spring days.
For he loves to lengthen our sweet spring days.
| Songs of Killarney | |