 | Songs and ballads by Samuel Lover |  |
THE FAIRY BOY.
[_]
When a beautiful child pines and dies, the Irish peasant believes the healthy infant has been stolen by the fairies, and a sickly elf left in its place.
A mother came when stars were paling,
Wailing round a lonely spring,
Thus she cried, while tears were falling
Calling on the Fairy King:
“Why, with spells my child caressing,
Courting him with fairy joy,
Why destroy a mother's blessing,
Wherefore steal my baby boy?
Wailing round a lonely spring,
Thus she cried, while tears were falling
Calling on the Fairy King:
“Why, with spells my child caressing,
Courting him with fairy joy,
Why destroy a mother's blessing,
Wherefore steal my baby boy?
12
“O'er the mountain, thro' the wild wood,
Where his childhood loved to play,
Where the flow'rs are freshly springing,
There I wander day by day;
There I wander, growing fonder
Of the child that made my joy,
On the echoes wildly calling
To restore my fairy boy.
Where his childhood loved to play,
Where the flow'rs are freshly springing,
There I wander day by day;
There I wander, growing fonder
Of the child that made my joy,
On the echoes wildly calling
To restore my fairy boy.
“But in vain my plaintive calling,
Tears are falling all in vain,
He now sports with fairy pleasure,
He's the treasure of their train!
Fare-thee-well! my child, for ever,
In this world I've lost my joy,
But in the next we ne'er shall sever,
There I'll find my angel boy.”
Tears are falling all in vain,
He now sports with fairy pleasure,
He's the treasure of their train!
Fare-thee-well! my child, for ever,
In this world I've lost my joy,
But in the next we ne'er shall sever,
There I'll find my angel boy.”
| Songs and ballads by Samuel Lover | |