Three Irish Spinning Songs - I

A young girl sings:

The Lannan Shee*
Watched the young man Brian
Cross over the stile towards his father's door,
And she said, "No help, for now he'll see
His byre, his bawn and his threshing floor!
And oh, the swallows
Forget all wonders
When walls with the nests rise up before."
My strand is knit.

"Out of the dream
Of me, into
The round of his labour he will grow;
To spread his fields
In the winds of Spring,
And tramp the heavy glebe and sow;
And cut and clamp
And rear the turf
Until the season when they mow."
My wheel runs smooth.

"And while he toils
In field and bog
He will be anxious in his mind--
About the thatch
Of barn and rick
Against the reiving autumn wind,
And how to make
His gap and gate
Secure against the thieving kind."
My wool is fine.

"He has gone back
And I'll see no more
Mine image in his deepening eyes;
Then I'll lean above
The Well of the Bride,
And with my beauty peace will rise!
O autumn star
In a hidden lake,
Fill up my heart and make me wise!"
My quick brown wheel!

"The women bring
Their pitchers here
At the time when the stir of the house is o'er;
They'll see my face
In the well-water,
And they'll never lift their vessels more.
For each will say
'How beautiful --
Why should I labour any more!
Indeed I come
Of so fair a race
'Twere waste to labour any more!'"
My thread is spun.

*The Lannan Shee is the Faery Mistress of Irish peasant romance.