IX. KATHLEEN. O NORAH, lay your basket down, And come and hear me sing a song There was a lord of Galaway, A mighty lord was he; A maid of low degree. But he was old, and she was young, And so, in evil spite, She baked the black bread for his kin, And fed her own with white. She whipped the maids and starved the kern,1 And drove away the poor; "Ah, woe is me!" the old lord said, "I rue my bargain sore!" This lord he had a daughter fair, Beloved of old and young, And nightly round the shealing-fires 2 Of her the gleeman sung. "As sweet and good is young Kathleen As Eve before her fall;" So sang the harper at the fair, So harped he in the hall. "O come to me, my daughter dear! For looking in your face, Kathleen, He smoothed and smoothed her hair away, O, then spake up the angry dame, I'll sell ye o'er the sea!" She clipped her glossy hair away, And sent her down to Limerick town, This' daughter of an Irish lord For ten good pounds in gold. The lord he smote upon his breast, But he was old, and she was young, And so she had her way. Sure that same night the Banshee1 howled To fright the evil dame, And fairy folks, who loved Kathleen, With funeral torches came. She watched them glancing through the trees, And glimmering down the hill; They crept before the dead-vault door, And there they all stood still! "Get up, old man! the wake-lights shine1" "Ye murthering witch," quoth he, "So I'm rid of your tongue, I little care If they shine for you or me." "O, whoso brings my daughter back, My gold and land shall have!" O, then spake up his handsome page, "No gold nor land I crave! "But give to me your daughter dear, Be she on sea or be she on land But she shall be your bride the day "O, have ye seen the young Kathleen, Ye'll know her by her eyes so blue, Out spake an ancient man, I know I bought her of a Limerick man, "No skill hath she in household work, Her hands are soft and white, Yet well by loving looks and ways She doth her cost requite." So up they walked through Boston town, And met a maiden fair, A little basket on her arm So snowy-white and bare. "Come hither, child, and say hast thou "O give to me this darling child, "We loved her in the place of one Sure now they dwell in Ireland: Ye'll see their castle looking down The pleasant Galway shore. And the old lord's wife is dead and gone, And a happy man is he, For he sits beside his own Kathleen, With her darling on his knee. J. G. Whittier. X. DON QUIXOTE AND THE WINDMILLS.* ENGAGED in this discourse, they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills which are in that plain; and as soon as Don Quixote espied them, he said to his squire,1 " Fortune disposes our affairs better. than we ourselves could have desired: look yonder, friend Sancho Panza, where thou mayest discover somewhat more than thirty monstrous giants, whom I intend to encounter and slay; and with their spoils we will begin to enrich ourselves; for it is lawful war, and doing God good service to remove so wicked a generation from off the face of the earth." "What giants ?" said Sancho Panza. "Those thou seest yonder," answered his master, "with their long arms; for some are wont to have them almost of the length of two leagues." "Look, sir," answered Sancho, "those which appear yonder are not giants, but windmills; and what seem to be arms are the sails, which, whirled about by the wind, make the mill-stone go." "It is very evident," answered Don Quixote, "that thou art not versed in the business of adventures: they are giants; and if thou art afraid, get thee aside and pray, whilst I engage with them in fierce and unequal combat." So saying, he clapped spurs to his steed, notwithstanding the cries his squire sent after him, assuring * By kind permission of Messrs. G. Routledge & Sons. |