Dirge for Aoine and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

O Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, your face is like a star,
Your face has led me to your feet o'er wastes and waters far;
Your face has made a day for me where only twilights are,
O Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, my star!

O Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, why loved I aught but you?
I took a woman to my wife, and kind she was and true,
But your gray eyes shone out on me within her eyes of blue,
And, Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, my soul went after you.

O Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, it's old I am and gray,
I see the dead leaves blown about the closing of my day;
The dead leaves, the red leaves, are rotting in my way,
O Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, to-day.

O Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, my Eily's grave is green,
And I've grown old a-seeking your face through tears and teen:
I 'll turn my feet from this straight path, where your white feet have been
And turned the dry ferns young again and green.

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I'll turn my feet from every path but one—the churchyard way:
I'll shut my eyes to every star, and sleep my fill till day;
'Tis Eily will awake me, and you it is will say
“Rise up, play up, old piper, 'tis the dawning of the day.”