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IRISH SONGS AND LYRICS 423 |
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THE RED MAN'S WIFE
Translated by Douglas Hyde in " Love Songs of Connacht"
9 'HT^IS what they say,
I Thy little heel fits in a shoe,
'Tis what they say, Thy little mouth kisses well, too. 'Tis what they say,
Thousand loves that you leave me to rue; That the tailor went the way That the wife of the Red man knew. |
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Nine months did I spend
In a prison closed tightly and bound; Bolts on my smalls'
And a thousand locks frowning around; But o'er the tide
I would leap with the leap of a swan, Could I once set my side
By the bride of the red-haired man.
I thought, O my life,
That one house between us love would be; And I thought I would find
You once coaxing my child on your knee; But now the curse of the High One
On him let it be, And on all of the band of the liars
Who put silence between you and me. |
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1 There are three "smalls," the wrists, elbows, and ankles. In Irish romantic literature we often meet mention of men being bound " with the binding of the three smalls." |
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