| lyric | 1. Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning,
Close by the windwo young Eileen is spinning,
Bent o’er the fire her blind grandmother sitting,
Crooning and moaning and drowsily knitting.
Chorus
Merily, cheerily, noiselessly whirring,
Spins the wheel, rings the reel,
while the foot’s stirring;
Lightly and lightly, and airily ringing,
Trills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.
2. ’What’s that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?’
”Tis the little birds chirping the holly-bush under.’
’What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on,
And singing, all wrong, that old song of ’The Coolun”?’
3. There’s a form at the casement, the form of her true love,
And he whispers with face bent: ’I’m waiting for you, love;
Get up from the stool, through the lattice step lightly,
We’ll rove in the grove while the moon’s shining brightly.’
4. The maid shakes her head, on her lips lays her fingers,
Steals up from the stool — longs to go, and yet lingers;
A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother,
Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the other.
5. Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round,
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel’s sound;
Noiseless and light to the lattice above her,
The maid steps — then leaps to the arms of her lover. |