The Irish Peasant Girl

She lived beside the Anner
At the foot of Slievna-man
A gentle peasant girl
With mild eyes like the dawn;
Her lips were dewy rosebuds;
Her teeth of pearls rare;
And a snow-drift 'neath a beechen bough
Her neck and nut-brown hair

How pleasant was to meet her
On Sunday when the bell
Was filling with its mellow tone
Lone wood and grassy dell
And when at eve young maidens
Strayed the river bank along
The widow's brown-haired daughter
Was loveliest of the throng

O brave, brave Irish girls-
We well may call you brave!-
Sure the least of all your perils
Is the stormy ocean wave
When you leave our quiet valleys
And cross the Atlantic's foam
To hoard your hard-won earnings
For the helpless ones at home

"Write word to my own dear mother
Say we'll meet with God above;
And tell my little brothers
I send them all my love;
May the angels ever guide them
Is their dying sister's prayer"-
And folded in a letter
Was a braid of nut-brown hair

Ah cold and well-nigh callous
This weary heart has grown
For thy helpless fate, dear Ireland
And for sorrows of my own
Yet a tear, my eye will moisten
When by Anner side I stray
For the lily of the mountain foot
That withered far away