My Little Dark Love

My little dark love is a wineberry, As swarth and as sweet, I hold; But as the dew on the wineberry Her heart is a-cold.

I would her love were as warm as the light That lives in her eye of grey, And then my heart would know the peace It dreams in the hills away.

I would her love were as red as the rose That blows on her cheek of brown, And then my sunless soul would laugh At the woe that weighs it down.

She dwells in the valley, my little dark love, Where the river sings to the sea, And an ogham-stone sits by her door, And nigh to it hazels three.

And oft when the purple twilight comes, And the blind bats flit in the air, I wander down from the quiet hills To seek my sweetheart there.

But she comes never--she loves not me, Nor ever will love, I hold; For tho' my heart is a peat of fire, Her heart is a-cold!