LADY KATHLEEN
Fair Lady Kathleen in her tower
Bowed her head like a wounded flower;
She wept the weary night away:
“Here I spin for a year and a day,
But 'tis for love's sweet sake” she said,
“My heart must break and I were dead.
The nettle I've pulled when the moon was bright
And brought it home in the dark of night—
I've trod it soft 'neath my naked feet
To make a cloak for thy rescue, sweet!”
The Lady Kathleen wept full sore:
“Oh, misery mine for a year and more!”
Day after day, and a promised spring
Bloomed into a summer of blossoming.
A thrush was carolling, mad with glee,
On the topmost bough of the rowan-tree;
He sang to fair Kathleen in her tower.
But the maiden heeded nor bird nor flower.
The daisies white and the sweet wild rose
Clad mead and hedge in their summer snows.
Fair Lady Kathleen wept alway:
“Oh, misery mine for a year and a day!”
A ghostly moon in a steel cold sky,
A dance of leaves by the wind swept by,
Like the mirthless rushing of phantom feet.
But the Lady Kathleen murmured: “Sweet!
Love keeps a woman's summer young.”
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