Again am I straying where children are playing,
Bright is the sunshine and balmy the air,
Mountains are heathy, and there do I see thee,
Sweet fawn of the valley, young Kate of Kenmare!

Thine arbutus beareth full many a cluster
Of white waxen blossoms like lilies in air;
But, oh! thy pale cheek hath a delicate lustre
No blossoms can rival, no lily doth wear;
To that cheek softly flushing, thy lip brightly blushing,
Oh! what are the berries that bright tree doth bear?
Peerless in beauty, that rose of the Roughty,
That fawn of the valley, sweet Kate of Kenmare!

O Beauty! some spell from kind Nature thou bearest,
Some magic of tone or enchantment of eye,
That hearts that are hardest, from forms that are fairest,
Receive such impressions as never can die!
The foot of the fairy, though lightsome and airy,[13]
Can stamp on the hard rock the shapes it doth wear;
Art cannot trace it, nor ages efface it:
And such are thy glances, sweet Kate of Kenmare!

To him who far travels how sad is the feeling,
How the light of his mind is o'ershadowed and dim,
When the scenes he most loves, like a river's soft stealing,
All fade as a vision and vanish from him!
Yet he bears from each far land a flower for that garland
That memory weaves of the bright and the fair;
While this sigh I am breathing my garland is wreathing,