"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.
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