_The Grief of a Girl's Heart_


O Donall og, if you go across the sea, bring myself with you and do
not forget it; and you will have a sweetheart for fair days and market
days, and the daughter of the King of Greece beside you at night. It
is late last night the dog was speaking of you; the snipe was speaking
of you in her deep marsh. It is you are the lonely bird through the
woods; and that you may be without a mate until you find me.

You promised me, and you said a lie to me, that you would be before
me where the sheep are flocked; I gave a whistle and three hundred
cries to you, and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.

You promised me a thing that was hard for you, a ship of gold under
a silver mast; twelve towns with a market in all of them, and a fine
white court by the side of the sea.

You promised me a thing that is not possible, that you would give me
gloves of the skin of a fish; that you would give me shoes of the skin
of a bird, and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.

O Donall og, it is I would be better to you than a high, proud,
spendthrift lady: I would milk the cow; I would bring help to you;
and if you were hard pressed, I would strike a blow for you.

O, ochone, and it's not with hunger or with wanting food, or drink,
or sleep, that I am growing thin, and my life is shortened; but it
is the love of a young man has withered me away.