Susan Mallaghan
You sang me to sleepwith 'The Spinning Wheel',
so many times; to me,
you did it more sweetly
than Delia Murphy. You saved me,
much to my embarrassment,
from a beating by Paul Curran
in Kilmorey Park, swinging
your sweeping brush.
And when you died,
Thelma wanted me
to kiss you in your coffin.
(John Francis Waller and Delia Murphy)
Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginningClose by the window young Eileen is spinning
Bent o'er the fire her blind grandmother sitting
Is crooning and moaning and drowsily knitting
"Eileen, a chara, I hear someone tapping"
"'Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping"
"Eily, I surely hear somebody sighing"
"'Tis the sound, mother dear, of the autumn winds dying"
Merrily, cheerily, noiselessly whirring,
Swings the wheel, spins the wheel while the foot's stirring,
Sprightly and brightly and airily ringing,
Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing
["What's that noise that I hear at the window I wonder?"
"'Tis the little birds chirping, the holly-bush under"
"What makes you be pushing and moving your stool on?
And singing all wrong that old song of Coolin?"]
There's a form at the casement, the form of her true love
And he whispers with face bent: "I'm waiting for you love"
"Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly
And we'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly"
The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fingers
Steals up from the seat, longs to go and yet lingers,
A frightened glance turns on her drowsy grandmother
Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the other
Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound
Noiseless and light to the lattice above her
The maid creeps, then leaps to the arms of her lover
Slower, and slower, and slower the wheel swings
Lower, and lower, and lower the reel rings
Ere the reel and the wheel stop their ringing and moving
Through the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving