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.’
She sped without fear in the awe of night,
Though the shuddering shadows would stay her flight
With the thought of a horror unknown,
Or a streamlet would laugh ‘neath the hedge unshown
But the Lady Kathleen wept no more
’Oh, joy is mine, for my trial’s o’er!’
To the white thorn-tree on the fairy rath
The Lady Kathleen quick took her path,
Till she stood in the midst of the elfin host,
Like a lily pale or a fair white ghost.
Loud the fairies laughed in their mad retreat,
As she found her love with a whispered 'Sweet!
It were no sorrow to lose for you
Youth’s golden days or weep long nights through.’
But he said ‘My love she had golden hair—
Her hands, her feet, they were lily-fair
So you can never be love of mine.’
‘O Love!’ she cried, 'if I am not thine,
My hands grew hard as they wove for thee
The magic cloak that hath set thee free.
My face grew sad, and my hair grew white,
In the silent horror of many a night.
And what shall I now that hope’s beacon-glow
Is quenched, and my heart sinks with gloom and woe?
Thy love,' she cried, 'be she lily-fair
As the fruit-tree’s bloom that may never bear,
Thou hungeredst—to fruit the blossom came
Thus youth was lost and thus beauty slain.
Thy sweet was fair as the page unwrit
Till Love’s strong hand traced his name on it.
Then, O my dear, if thou canst not see
This sorrow cometh from love of thee,
Be blind awhile with a rising tear,
And thou wilt find that thy love is here.’
But ah, for woman whose heart is strong
To weary never and love too long!
And what is life to a heart denied?
Fair Lady Kathleen drooped and died.
