Village Gossip

This morn when I went through the deep green wood, I came on daft Kathleen dancing there! Yes—little Kathleen with her moonlight hair— In a fairy ring she was dancing there As ye wouldn't think she could! She looked like a tattered butterfly, Or a leaf the wind whirled by.

Her cloak was all ragged and russet brown; A wreath of rose-berries decked her head,— Ay, pretty Kathleen who was never wed,— Her sleeves had patches of green and of red; They fluttered up and down! Her petticoat, yellow as mustard bloom, Was like sunshine in the gloom.

Sure she belongs in the house on the hill, That holds the poor—and the partly queer. Heaven save us from ending there, my dear! I sign the cross when I'm passing it near, For it gives my heart a chill. But Kathleen is queer this many a day;— She lost her lover, they say.

Well, truly God knows they should lock them in; But the doors hang loose; the keys are lost; The rattling windows are warped by frost, And the old bent roof is all overmossed. To hold them there would be sin! Faith, the weary lot of them come and go, The way that the four winds blow.

So Herself was down in the forest dell; And softly I called: "O woman dear, Are ye quite bewitched that ye'r dancing here! 'Tis the young should dance, not the worn and sere— And have ye no beads to tell?" She threw me a smile from her merry lips; A kiss from his finger tips!

"Come and see!" she said, "'tis a fairy ring, A fairy ring—and it's hard to find! See! I dance for Youth I have left behind! For joys I'd have known, if life had been kind; And for True-love that ne-er takes wing. O when I am here—and free—and away— It's always midsummer day!"

Was ever a creature as daft as this? Can ye name me one under the sun? Dancing for youth that was over and done— Dancing for joys that were never begun— And for love that went amiss! Yet—considering—maybe it's not too bad Old Kathleen's a little mad.