The Coolun

Rise up, my boy! make ready

My horse, for I forth would ride,

To follow the modest damsel,

Where she walks on the green hill-side:

For ever since youth were we plighted,

In faith, troth, and wedlock true—

Oh, she’s sweetêr to me nine times over

Than organ or cuckoo!

For ever since my childhood

I loved the fair and darling child;

But our people came between us,

And with lucre our pure love defiled:

Oh, my woe it is, and my bitter pain,

And I weep it night and day,

That the colleen bán of my early love

Is torn from my heart away.