(From the eighteenth-century Irish)
Cold, dark, and dumb lies my boy on his bed;
Cold, dark, and silent the night dews are shed;
Hot, swift, and fierce fall my tears for the dead!
His footprints lay light in the dew of the dawn
As the straight, slender track of the young mountain fawn;
But I'll ne'er again follow them over the lawn.
His manly cheek blushed with the sun's rising ray,
And he shone in his strength like the sun at midday;
But a cloud of black darkness has hid him away.
And that black cloud for ever shall cling to the skies:
And never, ah, never, I'll see him arise,
Lost warmth of my bosom, lost light of my eyes!