come wid me,
I'm goin' for to go wid you, and lave this counteree;
I'm goin' to lave my father, his castles and freelands--
An' away what Willy Reilly, an' his own Colleen Bawn.

"Och, they wint o'er hills an' mountains, and valleys that was
fair,
An' fled before her father as you may shortly hear;
Her father followed afther wid a well-chosen armed band,
Och, an' taken was poor Reilly, an' his own Colleen Bawn."

The simple pathos of the tune, the affection implied by the words, and
probably the misfortune of Willy Reilly, all overcame him, He finished
the second verse with difficulty, and on attempting to commence a third
he burst into tears.

"Colleen bawn! (fair, or fair-haired girl)--Colleen bawn!" he exclaimed;
"she's lyin' low that was my colleen bawn! Oh, will ye hould your
tongues, an' let me think of what has happened me? She's gone: Mary,
avourneen, isn't she gone from us? I'm alone, an' I'll be always lonely.
Who have I now to comfort me? I know I have good childhre, neighbors;
but none o' them, all of them, if they wor ten times as many, isn't
aqual to her that's in the grave. Her hands won't be about me--there was
tindherness in their very touch. An', of a Sunday mornin', how she'd tie
an my handkerchy, for I never could rightly tie it an myself, the knot
was ever an' always too many for me; but, och, och, she'd tie it an so
snug an' purty wid her own hands, that I didn't look the same man! The
same song was her favorite, Here's your healths; an' sure it's the first
time ever we wor together that she wasn't wid us: but now, avillish,
your voice is gone--you're silent and lonely in the grave; an' why
shouldn't I be sarry for the wife o' my heart that never angered me?
Why shouldn't I? Ay, Mary, asthore, machree, good right you have to cry
afther her; she was the kind mother to you; her heart was fixed in you;
there's her fatures on your face; her very eyes, an' fair hair, too, an'
I'll love you, achora, ten times more nor ever, for her sake. Another
favorite song of hers, God rest her, was 'Brian O'Lynn.' Troth an' I'll
sing it, so I will, for if she was livin' she'd like it.

'Och, Brian O'Lynn, he had milk an' male,
A two-lugged porringer wanfcin' a tail.'

Oh, my head's through other! The sarra one o' me I bleeve, but's out o'
the words, or, as they say, there's a hole in the ballad. Send round
the punch will ye? By the hole o' my coat, Parra Ga